


Waltz, Tango, Foxtrot

by out_there



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-04-24
Updated: 2006-04-24
Packaged: 2017-10-13 09:24:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/135721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/out_there/pseuds/out_there
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Summary, courtesy of <a href="http://delurker.livejournal.com/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://delurker.livejournal.com/"><b>delurker</b></a>:<br/>Life is great for Dr Rodney McKay, a research theorist at Berkeley. He's managed to arrange it so that he sees students only rarely, and he's getting laid frequently by fellow MENSA member and ecology professor Christine. What more could a man want?</p><p>Unfortunately for Rodney, it turns out that Christine wants more. Faced with her demands that he learn to dance or she'll dump him, Rodney turns to John Sheppard: part-time dance instructor and full time bank-teller, with a dream of becoming a pilot.</p><p>John's supposed to be teaching him how to waltz, but Rodney's learning a lot more than that! But what will happen when the music ends?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waltz, Tango, Foxtrot

**Author's Note:**

> Originally started for the Harlequin challenge, but certainly not finished in time. It's an AU, so no spoilers. I completely blame Patrick Swayze and Dirty Dancing for this. Thanks to [](http://mecurtin.livejournal.com/profile)[**mecurtin**](http://mecurtin.livejournal.com/) for a careful beta and [](http://scribewraith.livejournal.com/profile)[**scribewraith**](http://scribewraith.livejournal.com/) for listening, prodding and offering editing solutions as I wrote. Without those two, this would be a lot shorter and make far less sense. ETA: also thanks to [](http://kmousie.livejournal.com/profile)[**kmousie**](http://kmousie.livejournal.com/) who has discovered my lack of knowledge when it comes to the possessive apostrophe.
> 
> Now also available in [audio form](http://community.livejournal.com/mckay_sheppard/1099345.html), thanks to [](http://hack-benjamin22.livejournal.com/profile)[**hack_benjamin22**](http://hack-benjamin22.livejournal.com/). How cool is that?
> 
> Cover by [](http://tardis80.livejournal.com/profile)[**tardis80**](http://tardis80.livejournal.com/):  
> 
> 
>   
> 

When Christine had told Rodney that he had no sense of rhythm, his response was a withering: "Duh." He was a scientist. It went without saying that he'd spent more time in a lab than on a dance floor.

Christine had pursed her raspberry-glossed lips and pushed back a strand of hair. Her hair was currently a short, dark bob, cutting sharply across her long neck. Last month it had been champagne-white to her shoulders, and the month before that had wheat-golden curls falling down her back. Rodney couldn't shake the suspicion that if he stuck around long enough, she'd eventually come back from the hairdresser's completely bald.

"My cousin's getting married in two months' time," she'd tossed over her shoulder as she walked up the steps to her apartment. "If you want to come, you need to be able to dance."

That had been the heart of the ultimatum. Christine was smart enough not to mention it again, but when tapes of musicals started mysteriously appearing in Rodney's VCR and a business card for a local dance school showed up in his wallet, Rodney understood the implications.

He weighed the pros and cons. Pro: he'd continue to see Christine, which meant semi-regular sex with a fairly attractive member of Mensa. Con: dancing -- _voluntarily_ dancing -- and doing it in front of total strangers. It was a scary reminder of gym class in high school, and while Rodney didn't think adult education would regress to the same level of pointing and laughing, the possibility of public humiliation was enormous.

He was fast-forwarding through "West Side Story" and skimming over the latest Galactic Center newsletter when Christine called.

"I'm free on Wednesday night."

"Okay," he'd said, flipping over to the Physical Review, and snorting at the supposed stability of phantom wormholes.

He could hear papers rustle from Christine's end. She was probably knee-deep in midterms completed by idiots: it explained her tight, clipped tone. It also explained why he was never, ever going to sink to lecturing. "Are you going to book in for the lessons?"

"I'll do it later."

He'd said it without thinking, suddenly distracted by imagining an exterior vacuum spacetime at a finite junction interface, and wanting Christine off the phone. It wasn't until he'd read the article twice and looked closely at the math (p=omega with omega<-1: hah!) that he realized what he'd agreed to do.

He dithered over calling now or putting it off until morning, but if he put it off he might forget it and have to deal with a tired, cranky Christine with a valid complaint. If he called now -- at a few hours past midnight -- he could leave a message and truthfully tell Christine that he was waiting for them to call him.

The business card was all shades of grey: dark silver lettering on a pale grey card, with words and phone numbers printed in curled, excessive-serif font. He dialed the number, and was fairly annoyed that a _person_ actually picked up the phone.

"Pegasus Dance School," drawled someone who was definitely not a message service.

"Aren't you supposed to have a machine on at this time of night? This is way out of business hours."

There was a slight pause, and then the guy said, "Yes, it is. How can I help you?"

"You have classes, right? On Wednesday nights?"

"We have beginner's ballroom dancing on Wednesdays. It starts at eight o'clock."

"Um, no, that's far too early." Rodney had lab time, and research, and moronic grad students that apparently _absolutely_ needed to see him at least once a week, and that day of hell was known as Wednesday. There was no way he'd be able to get out of Berkeley by eight, let alone get halfway into San Francisco. "Do you have any later classes?"

"We don't have any at two a.m."

"Well, no, of course not. Why should you have time when I'm awake and not needed in at least two other places? That would be asking far too much."

"We also have private lessons, if you really can't make the group class. But it costs more."

Rodney snorted. He would have rolled his eyes, but that was fairly pointless when you were on the phone. "Yeah, that's the issue here. The _cost_."

"What is the issue?"

"Publicly taking lessons to learn how to do something I really don't want to do, and will never use in any practical way, all because my girlfriend wants to look good at her cousin's wedding. Which is somewhat ridiculous because she doesn't even like her cousin -- she doesn't like any of her family -- so it's not as if gliding across a dance floor is going to make the day any less of an endurance trial. Also, she's going with me and while there are a good number of reasons why I should impress anyone she's ever met, my ability to dance will never be one of them." Rodney sighed. "Really, that's the tip of the iceberg."

"Okay, then. If you do need private lessons, feel free to call during the hours that normal people are awake. If you can make the group class, come along this week and see what you think."

When Rodney explained it to Christine, she gave a short nod, pushed her ironically thick-framed glassed up her small nose and told him to meet her in the staff car park at seven. Before he could complain about grad students and wormhole theories, she raised an eyebrow and said, "Maybe you should see if you can meet your grad students on Tuesday. It might make the timing easier."

She was right. Instead of spending Wednesday evening surrounded by a crowd of masters' students who couldn't tell the difference between a black hole and a wormhole, he spread the appointments over Tuesday. Only two overlapped to Wednesday morning, and one of those was Peter -- who had trouble following Rodney's calculations, but could follow the theories of astrophysics with ease -- so Rodney wasn't in a particularly bad mood when he headed down to Christine's practical, midnight-blue Volvo.

After forty minutes of not-quite-rush-hour traffic, his almost good mood had settled back into general annoyance with the world. Christine's five minute parking space search didn't help.

When they finally got there -- after two narrow flights of stairs that left Rodney muttering about "those new-fangled devices known as _elevators_!" -- they were greeted by a guy in faded denim jeans, a black T-shirt and a red clipboard who half-smiled and waved them into the studio proper. Rodney had hoped for someone who looked like a young Alice Faye, and was expecting one of the extras from "Fame", but the guy looked like any one of the hundreds of students on campus, from his scruffy off-white sneakers to his dark, unkempt (read: I couldn't be bothered finding a comb this morning) hair.

He was going to be taught -- and probably mocked -- by the type of ignoramus who'd fail Intro Geology. It was beyond depressing.

And thinking of depressing, here came the idiot in question. "My name's John," he said, holding out his hand. Rodney gave it a quick shake; Christine held his hand for noticeably longer. "I teach most of the beginner classes."

"I'm Christine." John smiled, both corners of his lips quirking up, and Christine beamed back at him. It was enough to make Rodney roll his eyes. "I lecture at Berkeley."

"Really? What subject?"

"Ecology," Rodney answered for her. If John wanted to fake an interest in counting bugs and caring for ecosystems, he didn't understand the boring agony of a bioecologist with a captive audience. "Dr Rodney McKay. Is the 'Pegasus' an astronomy reference?"

"Mythology. Winged horses, winged feet. It's a thing," John said, rolling his hand in small circles.

Other people came in: middle-aged men in suits, their wives in skirts and low, practical heels; a few pairs of early-twenty-somethings in jeans and torn tops. Rodney counted eight couples, including them, which must have been all because John stood in the centre of the room and got their attention by yelling out over the chatter.

"Hey!" Heads turned to John and the noise quieted. John smiled, showing a flash of very white teeth. "As most of you know, I'm John and this is the beginner's ballroom class. Tonight, we're concentrating on the waltz, and if we get time, I'll show you a few steps of the jazz waltz, too."

From there, things got worse. There was John casually calling out pointers as he demonstrated the steps and other couples producing their own clumsy version, and being rewarded with a few soft words and John's wry grin. There was the loud way that Christine kept saying, "Ow!" every time Rodney stepped on one of her feet. And the way that John came over to them and winced, saying, "Maybe you should have opted for the private lessons."

"Thank you," Rodney snapped, trying to remember to keep his back straight, and his shoulders back, and step with his left foot, and keep his hand up. He stepped on Christine's foot -- again -- and decided it was too hard to imitate dancing monkey and talk at the same time. He stopped moving. "That's very encouraging. No wonder this class is so popular."

"I mean that you need to loosen up." John put his hand over Rodney's and pried his white-knuckled grip off Christine's hand. "This is supposed to be fun."

"Fun? This is not fun, this is--" Rodney looked up in time to see Christine's blue eyes narrow. Semi-regular sex was only a selling a point if he kept getting some. "This is a learning experience. The fun will come when I know what I'm doing."

"Watch me, okay?" John took Christine's hand and she beamed again. Rodney noticed the way her eye-teeth weren't quite straight and the slight gap between her bottom centre teeth. John either didn't notice or didn't care, as he curled his fingers around her waist and started moving.

Christine hadn't been lying when she said she could dance. She followed John's lead easily, their feet landing together -- in perfect time and without any of those distracting "ow"s -- and their bodies mirroring each other.

Rodney crossed his arms and loathed his life.

The pair of them kept moving and John started counting out, "One, two-three. One, two-three. Watch my feet, Rodney. One, two-three." Which didn't help, because John didn't move to time. Oh, sure, his feet touched the ground as he counted but it was nothing like Rodney's robotic march towards rhythm. It was graceful and swaying; John's whole body slid and flowed from one step to the next like mercury gliding up a thermometer. He made it look as easy as breathing.

That was somewhat appropriate. Rodney remembered being six and drinking lemonade, he remembered feeling his throat close up, and his pulse start to race, and not being able to breathe, no matter how hard he tried. John danced like he was breathing; Rodney danced like he was gasping his last breath.

An hour later, after the first lesson was finally ended and Christine was muttering about buying steel-capped boots for next week, he wasn't any better. He couldn't hold the rhythm; he couldn't get the steps in the right order, at the right time. It was hopeless. But that night Christine sucked him until his eyes rolled back in his head, and he found himself agreeing to the second lesson.

The second lesson was the same. Fewer "ow"s -- because he'd found the best way for him to learn to dance was to watch his feet and avoid Christine's -- another fun moment of watching John dance with Christine like it was the most natural thing in the world, and that irritating and overwhelming sense of failure at the end of the night.

When the third lesson followed this pattern again, Rodney swallowed his pride. He waited until the other couples dawdled out and then told Christine he'd meet her at the car. He felt a little guilty watching her hobble away.

John looked up from his clipboard and smirked. It was welcoming and friendly, everything a smirk shouldn't be. "Is there something you wanted, Rodney?"

"I want to be able to dance in public without looking like a barely trained baboon."

John almost laughed. "You're not that bad."

"Oh, please," Rodney said, rolling his eyes, "don't humor me. It demeans us both."

"You have promise. You're just really, really tense."

"I live tense. That's not going to change. I need to find a way to fake the looseness thing." Rodney shifted on his feet. He hated this feeling of asking the teacher for extra help. He'd never had to do it in school: he'd always been the one ahead of the teacher, finishing the extension work with ease. But they were subjects that made sense -- English, math, physics, chemistry -- not irrelevant, meaningless things like dancing. "That's where you come in."

"You want me to loosen you up?" John asked, his hazel eyes twinkling. There was something in his smile that made Rodney forget to breathe for a nanosecond, made him almost forget what he was going to ask. It was odd.

"No. I want private lessons. Without, you know, having to mention it to Christine. Because it's bad enough that something this stupid and pointless is somehow beyond my intellectual ability to master. I don't need my girlfriend knowing that too." Rodney pulled at the hem of his Oxford shirt. "Are there any nights you're free?"

John smiled. It wasn't the same species as the thought-stopping one, but it was in the same genetic line. "How about Fridays? Or Mondays? Those are my best nights."

"How about both?" Rodney asked, and John blinked. "Oh, come on. The wedding is five weeks away. I think I need all the lessons I can get."

"Christine won't mind?"

Rodney snorted. "She's always busy grading papers. She wouldn't notice if I was abducted by aliens three nights a week."

They worked out the boring details of time and place, and then the cost. John half shrugged as he explained that it was a better quality of lesson -- a stronger focus, more personal attention -- but Rodney waved that away. He lived in a run-down apartment twenty minutes from campus with one greedy cat. He had a good job, few expenses and was regularly hired as a consultant for various government agencies. The cost wasn't a problem.

To prove that, he paid in advance at his first lesson. When he pressed the check into John's hand, John's eyes went wide. "I think you wrote an extra zero on here."

"No. Five weeks, two private lessons per week, that's ten lessons," Rodney corrected, setting his backpack down on one of the chairs lining the studio. "It seemed easier to get it out of the way now."

John grinned and Rodney could almost see the dollar signs light up in his eyes. "Okay."

While Rodney pulled off his red and black Hockey Canada jacket, John fiddled with the stereo until it played a low piano-and-drums blues song. "What is that?"

"It's Aretha Franklin," John said, tapping his foot in time with the beat and remaining utterly serious. "'I Never Loved a Man.'"

Rodney raised his eyebrows. "And I'm supposed to dance to it?"

"It's got a standard waltz beat. It's the less boring alternative to spending an hour bored by classical music."

Of course. You could teach the monkey to dance, but you couldn't teach him to appreciate music. "I am surrounded by philistines and morons."

"I can put 'Fly Me To The Moon' on, if you'd prefer." John smirked and gestured for him to come closer. "And while you still need me to teach you, care to lighten up on the insults?"

He could have pointed out that the insults were deserved but that was probably a waste of time when he was paying for the lesson. Plus, he'd never hear the end of it from Christine if he got them banned from classes. "I'll try."

"Now apply that attitude to dancing."

That was easier said than done.

The first problem was John's height. Objectively, he wasn't that much taller than Rodney. But John was inches taller than any woman he'd dated, and that was where the trouble came in. Rodney wasn't used to reaching _up_ to rest his hand on his partner's waist so he kept being distracted by it, by the awareness of raising his arm, of the thin cotton and solid warmth beneath his hand. It was unnerving.

"I think you should be leading," Rodney muttered, after the third time he tried to turn in the wrong direction. "You're too tall for this to work."

John blinked, and then moved his foot back a moment before Rodney stomped on it. "Too tall?"

"Well, yes. I can't see over your shoulder to see where we're going, when I try to watch my feet I nearly headbutt you, and your waist should be lower. It's throwing out my entire sense of balance and co-ordination."

"I wondered what was."

Rodney pulled his hands back and settled them across his chest. "We should swap positions. You should try leading for a while. It's not as easy as it looks!"

"Dr McKay, I already know how to lead and I can't really see the point in teaching you to follow. Besides, you don't seem like the type who's easily led." John smiled widely, eyes crinkling in amusement and for a moment, Rodney forgot to be annoyed.

"Well, I'm not, I mean, generally speaking, I don't follow the crowd, but that's mainly because the crowd tends to be very loud and very wrong--" Rodney snapped his mouth shut. It was the quickest way to stop babbling.

That was where the second problem came in. John _laughed_. It wasn't the cruel, taunting laughter Rodney had spent most of his pre-adolescence ignoring. It wasn't the tight, annoyed laughter that came with professional jealousy and grudging respect.

It was… well. Kind.

John laughed like he was having fun, like he'd just discovered the coolest tree house and wanted everyone to come play. John laughed with tiny almost-dimples in the corners of his smile, and crows' feet at the outside edges of his eyes. And when John laughed, Rodney had to smile back.

Rodney hadn't gotten where he was -- research theorist in a well-funded university, the minimum number of grad students and contact hours, his own completely private office and a corner of the lab that was always miraculously empty when he wanted to run simulations -- by _smiling_ _back_. He'd got there through scowling and glaring, and pointing out why everyone else was wrong. The hard work and superior intelligence had played their part, too, but most of the credit belonged to the scowling.

But here was John, laughing and taking Rodney's hand, counting softly and forcing Rodney to move again. It went against all natural laws. No one could be enjoying themselves while trying to follow Rodney's directionally-challenged steps and avoid Rodney's feet.

"You don't have to enjoy this, you know."

"It's my job." John smiled, and the almost-dimples nearly made an appearance. Rodney tried hard to keep his scowl.

"Precisely. It's your job. Therefore, you are paid for it and do it _because_ you are paid for it. No one is asking you to fake enjoyment." Rodney realized he'd lost count of his steps again, and stopped. "You are certainly not being paid enough to fake it."

"Maybe I find you amusing."

"And maybe _sus scrofa domesticus_ will be considered avian." When John continued staring blankly at him, Rodney clarified, "Maybe pigs will fly."

"They're making leaps and bounds in the field of genetic manipulation." John rolled his shoulders beneath another form-fitting black T-shirt. It was possible that the man only owned one style of T-shirt, which was beyond sad. Everyone should have at least one bright, witty and oversized shirt. "It could happen."

"It seems more likely than me learning to dance," Rodney said, glancing at the clock in relief, "but at least that's one lesson over. Without any marked improvement, I might add."

"I'll try to think of something different for Monday."

Rodney rolled his eyes. Then he picked up his backpack and left while John was fiddling with the stereo. 'Something different' wasn't going to fix this, but he suspected that sheer determination (or bloody-mindedness as his sister described it) would. So he told Christine he was busy on Saturday, bought three brightly covered _'Teach Yourself to Dance in 10 Easy Lessons!'_ tapes, and swore that he wouldn't leave the house until he mastered the second lesson.

The first tape was thrown across the room at eleven a.m. on Saturday. It hit his kitchen bench sharply and the back plastic bracket snapped off.

The second tape lasted until three p.m., when Rodney ejected it out of the machine, threw it to the floor and proceeded to jump up and down on it until it was nothing more than a black broken case and dark magnetic tape pooling across his carpet.

As for the third one, it died a ceremonious death at eight-fifteen. Rodney carefully and solemnly fed its tape down the garbage disposal, listening for the satisfying whirr of perky voices and ridiculously instructions being decimated.

He called Christine, but only got her answering machine. Calling John seemed like a perfectly rational idea after that, but John didn't seem to agree.

"Christ, McKay, what time is it?"

"It's nine o'clock on a Saturday night." Rodney almost felt bad. "Most people are awake at this time."

"Most people haven't spent a week working two jobs and then had to work overtime on the third one." John's voice was scratchy, like two-day-old stubble. He didn't sound pleased.

"I woke you up?"

"Yes, Christ." The sound of John yawning carried cleanly down the telephone line. "What did you want?"

"I wanted another dance lesson."

"You're having one. On Monday." There was a slight pause, a small rustle, and then a sigh. "So why did you call me?"

"I wanted to see if you were free this weekend." Rodney had a guilty flash of John asleep and in bed, stretched out and lying face-down, covers twisted and caught around his legs, his arms wrapped around the pillow. He grimaced; his perfectly reasonable idea wasn't looking so reasonable anymore. "For another lesson."

"I'll see you on Monday."

"But--"

"Monday, McKay."

Rodney was left holding the phone with a dead dial-tone and slight suspicion that he might have really annoyed the one person who thought dancing was something he could actually learn. He considered calling back to apologize but he never did apologies well -- or congratulations, or thank-yous, or condolences -- so he'd probably make it worse.

He considered telling Christine about it and asking for her opinion -- which was, occasionally, helpful -- but that required telling her about the private lessons. He still had a shred of pride; the apology could wait until Monday.

He wasn't looking forward to it but that little, annoying voice of conscience kept pointing out that he _should_ , so he did. He swallowed that last glimmer of pride, walked over to John and said, "I'm sorry about calling you. I didn't think you'd be asleep -- I didn't think anyone between the ages of twelve and seventy went to bed before nine o'clock -- so it wasn't like it was done on purpose or anything."

"Don't worry about it." John shrugged and unzipped his leather jacket. Underneath -- oh, big surprise -- was another tight, black T-shirt. "Now take your shirt off."

"What? I apologize and you tell me to undress? What is this, Haze the Geek Day?"

John took a deep breath and spoke slowly. "We're trying something different."

"If this something different involves me getting naked, there is something very, very wrong with your teaching techniques. This is a dancing lesson, this is not--" Rodney lost his train of complaint when John wrapped his arms around his own midriff, took hold of the infamous black T-shirt and smoothly pulled it over his head and off.

Rodney would have wagered good money that those T-shirts gave a very accurate impression of John's body. Broad shoulders, flat abs, defined chest: the T-shirt made all those points very clear. But it hadn't even hinted at the dark hair sneaking down towards John's waistband or the tan that seemed impossibly even. Or precisely how low John's pants sat. Rodney wouldn't have guessed that without the T-shirt, he'd be able to see the top curve of John's hipbones -- although he had noticed that the guy was fairly fit -- and the V of muscle that framed the bottom of his stomach.

That was when Rodney realized he was staring. "You're not, like, a hooker in your spare time, are you?"

John blinked. Rodney was getting used to those slow blinks: they seemed to be John's way of buying time before he reacted. "Excuse me?"

"Well, I show up, I pay you money, you strip and try to get me naked. I'm just wondering," Rodney said, both hearing his voice get higher and being powerless to stop it, "if you've mixed up your part-time jobs and forgotten that you were supposed to be teaching me to dance!"

This time, John laughed and Rodney saw the muscles in John's stomach move. It was distracting and oddly mesmerizing, nearly as bad as the almost-dimples.

"I'm not a prostitute, except in the most corporate of ways. I work at First National. I'm a teller." It was hard to imagine that shock of messy hair and cheeky eyes behind some bank counter, counting out change and typing in figures. Rodney barely had time to consider the image, let alone shift his entire paradigm of who and what John was, before John made a 'come here' sign with his hand. "Now, take your shirt off."

"Why?"

"Because we're trying something different," John said, only rolling his eyes for a moment. "And I don't want to spend another hour avoiding your Doc Martins."

Rodney was tempted to correct him: they were not Doc Martins and he was not wearing big, bulky shoes to be ironic. He happened to have dropped arches. Instead he heard himself say, "But… clothes?"

"McKay." John's hands settled on Rodney's shoulders, but Rodney didn't object. He didn't know why, but he didn't. "Trust me."

Then John pulled back and grinned. "I have a plan."

"And in this plan I'm naked?" Rodney said, and then wished the earth would open up and swallow him whole. Some sentences were so stupid the brain shouldn't be allowed to think them. "I mean, what the hell is this plan?"

"This is the plan," John said, pressing one palm over Rodney's mouth and stepping close enough that Rodney could smell the beach-citrus-vanilla scent of him, "where you stop complaining and do what I tell you."

The man had no concept of private space and interpersonal boundaries. With a deftness that Rodney would have envied at any other time, John's fingers skipped down the front of his shirt, flicking buttons open. Then John's hand slipped to Rodney's left wrist; then his right. Rodney was still trying to think of an appropriate insult -- because, really, a hand over his _mouth_! Like he was a dog that needed to be muzzled! -- when he noticed John was pushing the shirt off his shoulders, tugging the sleeves off his arms, leaving Rodney standing in his blue T-shirt (the one that proclaimed, "There are 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary and those who don't.").

John draped the shirt over his very bare arm, like he was a waiter for the weirdest topless restaurant ever. Rodney wondered if he'd be asked to order something.

"Rodney?" John made a 'gimme' motion, lazily curling those long fingers towards his palm. "The T-shirt, too."

Rodney objected to commands on general principle; it was a personal goal to never be any more agreeable than absolutely necessary. On the other hand, John was holding his favorite Oxford shirt hostage and apparently had no compunctions about undressing other people. He had a short premonition of John pushing up his T-shirt, those narrow hands running up his ribcage, sure and certain and…

Rodney scrambled out of the T-shirt.

"There, fine. Can I ask if there's going to be any more insane ideas? Should I be practicing how to hop on one leg and sing your national anthem backwards?"

"I don't think so," John drawled, all smirking lips and crinkled eyes, "but you never know." He took the T-shirt from Rodney's unresisting grip. Then he had the nerve to saunter over to the stereo and stand there, promenading the smooth, toned lines of his back as he folded Rodney's clothes and placed them neatly on a chair.

It was irritating to have to acknowledge the differences between them, but it was unavoidable. Where John was tanned and sleek, Rodney was… not. He was pale and white, and not in the alabaster, skin-of-cream way. The romanticism of that notion was spoiled by the blue-green and indigo of veins beneath the skin, the freckles splattered across his shoulders and arms from family vacations long ago, and the handful of red spots beneath his collarbone. (It was monstrously unfair that when you grew out of being a teenager, when your face finally cleared, the pimples didn't go away: they _moved_.)

The fish-belly white skin tone wasn't the only flaw. He had a soft stomach, and small love-handles, and the only exercise his body knew was walking from his office to the candy machine. Those were objective facts that he'd come to accept, like hay fever and allergies, like a low immune system and weak ankles. It didn't bother him.

Unless he had to stand half-naked next to a guy who could bend down to play a CD and still look like something out of Playgirl. An assumption, true, but if Playgirl wasn't filled with pictures of guys who looked like John -- who made every movement full of grace and sexual promise -- publishing houses were run by complete imbeciles.

"Today, we're going to work on your posture," John announced. Rodney pulled his shoulders back and tried to discreetly suck in his gut. John fiddled with the stereo volume one last time before turning around. "You understand signal-to-noise ratio, right?"

"Please don't say something monumentally stupid. I've already had to deal with students' attempts to break very simple laws of physics. There's a limit to how much idiocy-masquerading-as-scientific-theory I can take in one day."

"A simple 'yes' would have been fine."

"I'm employed by the highly regarded science faculty of a large university," Rodney crossed his arms and was reminded once again: yep, no clothes. He'd agreed to undress; he hadn't agreed to be nice. "I think I have a grasp of very, very basic communication theories."

"You know, if you're going to be like that about it, I don't think I'm going to explain this to you."

"Please." Rodney rolled his eyes. "How did I offend your delicate sensitivities?"

For a moment he was worried that he actually had. Then John smirked and he knew it was okay. "I had a valid point to make. You assumed I was an idiot."

"I assume everyone's an idiot. It saves a lot of time that way. There's nothing worse than expecting the slightest amount of competence. Take, for instance, the school's administration department. I tell them a month in advance -- a _month_ , mind you -- that I'll be out of the country between semesters. You would think they'd take note of it but, no, instead they send several highly important documents to my apartment -- where I'm incapable of even knowing they exist -- and then blame _me_ for not returning them in time." Rodney stopped his hands churning the air, and chose to believe that John's bright smile -- and, yes, almost-dimples -- signaled agreement. "Anyway, you're a dance instructor. I highly doubt that electronic communication was part of the syllabus for whatever qualifications you've got. Wait. You do have qualifications, don't you?"

It was another one of those slow blinks, long enough that Rodney had to notice the charcoal black of John's lashes. "I have a Bachelors."

"In dance?"

"In Applied Mathematics."

"From where?" Some backward community college was Rodney's guess.

John rolled his shoulders: bare skin over smooth muscle, and Rodney was absolutely not staring. "M.I.T."

Rodney really wanted to hate John. It wasn't enough that he was lithe and gorgeous, not enough that he had a dazzling smile and a body that allowed Rodney to _count_ the separate muscle groups. Not enough that John managed, despite his appearance, to be interesting, but he had to be smart, too?

It was such an insult.

But that was a flawed deduction. A bachelor's degree didn't automatically make John a Mensa candidate. After all, Rodney's grad students proved that. It probably meant that John had a reasonable short-term memory, didn't do terribly bad in exams, and was able to charm lecturers into letting him pass.

That made Rodney feel a little better. "So why are we working on posture and not, say, teaching me steps so I stop tromping on everyone's toes?"

"Dancing isn't steps."

"It isn't? I must have been confused by all those lessons where you taught us _steps_. Now I see the error of my ways. Nothing to do with steps, it's clearly all about, about-- penguins and sea-monkeys!" It wasn't the best insult he'd ever come up with, but this was frustrating. "I swear, this is like playing Monopoly with Jeannie. She'd always change the rules half-way round the board."

"Steps are a part, a small part, of dancing. The more important part is the connection, the bond between the dancers."

"You're not going to suggest super-glue, are you?"

"Look--" John hissed in a sharp breath -- not a happy sound, but one that Rodney was used to getting from people -- and then sighed. "It's like music. You like music, right?"

That seemed too obvious. "Yes."

"Dancing isn't steps performed in sequence. The same way that music isn't notes played in order. Memorizing it, reciting it, doesn't make it beautiful, doesn't make it enjoyable. Or fun." A hopeful expression settled on John's face and the earnestness of it was painful. "You have to feel it."

Rodney considered telling John about his piano lessons. It had taken years of careful practice, of meticulous mimicry, to learn how to fool people, to learn how to keep them captivated and amazed, to make them respond on an emotional level. It took someone with real musical skill to recognize that his technical brilliance only pretended to be heartfelt.

He doubted John would understand. It didn't matter; he was smart enough to find a way to fake this, too. "Sure, you have to feel it. Fine."

"You have to feel your partner," John said, and then flushed slightly, "and that sounded a little dirtier than intended. You have to feel the connection. You need the right posture so that when you move slightly, when you try to lead, you know how your partner will react."

"I'd rather learn how to stop stepping on Christine's toes," Rodney muttered under his breath.

John ignored him. "That's where the signal-to-noise ratio comes in. To reduce interference, to transmit the most information you can -- without words -- you need good posture, you need a firm dance frame."

"That sounds vaguely familiar."

John raised an eyebrow. "Because I discussed it with you at the last group lesson?"

"Maybe." He'd been too distracted watching Christine. She'd tilted her head and smiled that fascinated, adoring smile that she normally reserved for self-sustaining micro-ecologies. It had been disturbing to see her aiming that expression at their dance instructor, clear for all to see.

It hadn't helped that John smiled back at her. Christine seemed to find those almost-dimples as distracting as Rodney did.

"Since you completely tense up dancing with someone else, I thought it might be best to work on your posture first." John slinked around beside him and settled a hand on Rodney's sternum, like, like-- Rodney didn't know what it was like, but it wasn't expected and it certainly wasn't acceptable. Except John, apparently, thought nothing of it.

"You need to lean forward here," John said, pressing lightly against the not-so-firm muscle. "And lean your shoulders back."

John's other hand pressed against the side of his collarbone, forcing him to lean away. Rodney wasn't going to object because he wasn't a prude, and it wasn't like he had a problem with being touched or anything, but still. The whole thing was surreal. Wrong and very surreal.

Then John pulled away his hands, which was fine -- great, even -- until he walked behind Rodney and the hands were back: one curled around his waist and the other snaking over his shoulder. "Is this the plan for today? Inappropriate touching?"

"The plan is that you learn the basic box steps of the waltz and you learn to do them right." John leaned closer, pushing his chest against Rodney's back -- warm, smooth skin, just as Rodney had surmised -- forcing Rodney to tilt his torso forward. The hand on his shoulder kept his body tight against John's. "You need to shift your weight onto your toes."

"I'm not planning to pirouette across the room."

"Not all the way up, just enough that your heels aren't taking your weight."

Rodney tried it. "There is no way normal people dance like this."

John laughed and dropped his head, meaning that he snuffled warm and moist air against the back of Rodney's neck. Rodney shivered, which John must have felt even as he ignored it.

"You'll get used to it. After a while, it'll feel less strange," John said, and Rodney highly doubted it. "Now raise your hands, as if you're dancing with Christine."

"But I'm not."

"Then pretend." The hands left his skin -- for a second, Rodney felt cold -- and then John was holding his hands up, holding him by the wrists like he was a mannequin. "Raise your hands. Like this. See? Easy as pi."

"Oh my god," Rodney said, spinning around and almost catching John's shoulder with his elbow, "that was a math joke, wasn't it? The oldest and most pathetic math joke ever."

John didn't look repentant. He should have been ashamed to have sunk to such a sad, clichéd level. "Turn around and keep your hands up."

"I cannot believe I'm actually paying money to do this." Rolling his eyes, Rodney turned around. Then John's hands were back on his wrists, John's warmth was solid against Rodney's back, and John was counting steps into his ear.

That was the entire lesson. John behind him, counting as Rodney moved, sliding into the next step a moment before (or a moment after) Rodney did. Rodney got used to the occasional tutting sound -- so soft he wouldn't have heard it if John's mouth wasn't inches from his ear -- when he turned the wrong direction; almost got used to John's fingers skating across his neck, gentle and sure, and tilting his chin up as John drawled, "Look ahead, not down."

He'd almost mastered the waltz -- well, the most basic of basic steps, at least -- managing to move when John moved, to feel the angle and distance through the shift of John's hips or the press of a shoulder, when John stepped back. "Time's up, McKay."

"What? But we only just--" Rodney glanced down at his watch. Unbelievably, John was right. "Huh."

"Couples class. Wednesday," John said, turning off the stereo and flipping out the CD.

Rodney made a vague noise of agreement as he scurried into his clothes. He very carefully didn't watch John pull the black T-shirt over his head. In fact, he made a particular effort not to watch.

For a moment, he wondered why that took a specific, conscious effort. Then he shook it off as unimportant.

The private lessons did help. Rodney calculated an improvement of approximately twenty-six percent, based on the number of "ow"s from Christine. He felt inverted, like he was doing everything backwards. The basic steps -- the steps he'd practiced with John -- those he got right. Most of the time. Well, half of the time.

But when John showed the class a new turn, an added twist and spin, Rodney managed to screw up the basic steps as well. And there was one time -- _one_ time! -- when he accidentally let go of Christine's hand, mid-spin, and she toppled to the floor. After that, John came over, all tight jeans and black T-shirt, and gave Christine his hand.

John pulled her up, then said rather pointedly to Rodney, "Maybe you should stick to the basic steps." Then he turned his gentle smile on Christine (she literally puffed up with self-importance; it was pathetic) and held onto her hand far longer than necessary. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah." She bit her lower lip and pushed back a strand of hair. During the week, her hairdresser had talked her into getting caramel streaks through the espresso-dark hair. Rodney wasn't convinced that it did her any favors -- it actually made her look a bit sallow -- but the over-long bangs gave her something to fiddle with while she grinned dopily at John. "I bruised my dignity, but other than that, I'm good."

"Good to hear."

"It's not like I meant to," Rodney objected. "I never claimed to have any skill in this, and I'm only learning it because you wanted me to. It's incredibly unfair to expect me to suddenly gain the knowledge of a professional when it's clearly not within my natural abilities."

The dopy grin left Christine's face. "I don't expect you to be Fred Astaire, Rodney. I'd just like to get through the lesson without any permanent damage."

"I really didn't mean to," he muttered as a pseudo-apology.

"I'm sure he didn't," John said, even though Rodney didn't need John defending him. "It takes real skill to be so spectacularly clumsy on purpose. I don't think Rodney has the coordination to do it."

Rodney scowled. "You know, I'm a little speechless. I don't know how to thank you for that compliment."

"No thanks necessary," John said with a wave of his hand. "I'm sure you won't mind if I borrow Christine to demonstrate a few things. Right?"

There was no way he could say no without looking like the ridiculous, jealous boyfriend. "Sure."

So he stood at the side of the room and tried not to glower at John and Christine, at the easy way he walked her through the steps, at the comfortable way she copied and followed, spinning around effortlessly. If he ignored the way that John grinned and laughed -- and the way Christine simpered in return -- and concentrated on watching them move, it was incredible. There was poetry in the way that Christine's skirt flared up and blossomed as she twirled, in the inevitable gravity of the spin that returned her to John's waiting embrace.

Rodney sighed. He'd never been a poet. He was a scientist; he liked experiments and theories, equations and logic. There was a beauty to science, to that perfect equation, to the experiment that proved a theory right, but it was nothing like this. This was sound and sight and movement: as primal as touch, as delicate as spun glass.

He was so screwed.

John and Christine demonstrated and twirled, and Rodney managed to get to the end of the lesson without having to dance again. It was a relief to get out of there. That night, Christine dropped him home and ignored the possibility of coming up to his apartment. He probably deserved it.

Over the next two days, a knot of dread settled in his stomach. By the time Friday night rolled around, the knot had solidified into gut-deep knowledge that he was -- for the first time in his adult life -- setting himself up for complete and utter failure.

Rodney and failure were not on close, personal terms. They were like two people who lived on the same block, but had never even nodded as they passed one another. He guessed that they were going to jump to a first-name basis pretty soon.

"Is there any possibility that you can actually teach me to dance?" Rodney blurted out as soon as John started pulling CDs from his beat-up backpack. "Contrary to popular belief, I am not a pessimist. I'm a _realist_. I have a strong faith in the principle of acknowledging reality as quickly and as efficiently as possible. So if I can't learn to dance -- and at this stage, barring a miracle, I think that's a certainty -- I'd like to know now. That way, I can calculate how much groveling I'm going to need to do to Christine and maybe find a believable medical condition that would prevent me from attending the wedding, or at the very least, having to dance at it."

John turned around slowly and the almost-dimples made an appearance. "And you're sure you're not a pessimist?"

"That doesn't answer my question." Rodney crossed his arms. "Do you really think it's possible for me to learn to dance capably?"

"Well," John said, hazel eyes crinkling, "very little is technically impossible."

"I don't find myself reassured by that."

John laughed, which for some reason was reassuring. "What will it take to make you optimistic?"

"Normally? Very good coffee."

"In that case," John said, and Rodney found himself staring at John's hand, at the way he pressed the palm flat against the thigh of his jeans, "fake the optimism for this lesson, and I'll take you to a great little coffee house afterwards. My treat."

"Your definition of a 'great little coffee house' isn't going to be Starbucks, is it? Because if so: no."

"It's an actual coffee house, free of franchises." John turned back to the stereo and played the CD, as if it was already decided. Honestly, it was. There was very little Rodney wouldn't do for a good cup of coffee. "Deal?"

"Only if I get to keep my shirt on." John frowned, lips drawing into a shapely pout, and Rodney had to take a quick breath to manage the right level of sarcasm. "You're not five. You can't win an argument by pouting at someone."

The pout disappeared. "You'd be surprised how often it works."

Rodney almost said that he really wouldn't have been surprised, but stopped himself just in time. "The clothes stay on, or no deal."

"Fine."

Despite Rodney's doubts, John did keep his word. Shirts remained on and the lesson was… not as bad as it could have been. Maybe he'd gotten used to dancing with someone John's height or maybe he was actually getting better, but either way, he managed an entire hour of leading John around the dance floor without stepping on John's feet. He did steer John into the back of a chair and there was a nasty instant where he tried to cross one leg in front of the other and ended up stumbling and falling against John's chest, but it was still a huge improvement.

It could have been because they stuck to the simpler steps. Once Rodney stopped trying to work out how the spins fit into the rest, it became almost zen-like in its repetitive pattern. Even John's occasional, "Head up, Rodney," seemed to slip into a relaxed rhythm: forward, across, back, a slight turn here, a small twist there.

It was an hour that deserved very good coffee. He said as much, and John led him downstairs. Then he showed Rodney his _motorcycle_.

"Are you insane? Do you know the lethal consequences of an accident on one of those things? They're deathtraps. The amount of spinal damage you can get from a relatively minor fall, even riding at a slow speed, makes them beyond impractical," Rodney said, when John asked him to get on it. "If I wanted to take my life in my hands like that, I'd try eating oranges. At least that can be done in the pleasure of my own home."

John raised an eyebrow. "I didn't know peeled fruit was so deadly."

"I'm allergic to citrus, in that it stops me breathing and causes permanent death," Rodney said, eyeing the black and chrome machine before him. "That doesn't change my point. There is no way in the world you are getting me on the back of a motorcycle."

"It's only four blocks. You could trust me for four blocks." John threw him a black helmet and Rodney was forced to catch it -- well, fumble for it -- to stop it hitting the ground.

"I don't think I can."

John pulled a helmet on -- and, huh, that probably explained the mussed hair -- and strode over to Rodney. He took the helmet out of Rodney's hands and settled it, surprisingly gently, on Rodney's head. "You can trust me. I promise I won't get you killed."

Scowling, Rodney let John fasten the helmet and adjust the straps. "Do you always carry a spare helmet?"

"You never know when you need to give someone attractive a ride." There was a hint of a smile on John's lips, and Rodney wasn't sure whether or not he was being mocked. "I take safety concerns seriously."

Rodney snorted. "If you did, you wouldn't ride a motorcycle."

"Sometimes, the thrill of going fast is worth it," John said, snapping his own straps into place. Before Rodney had a chance to dispute that statement and point out the many, many logical flaws in John's assumptions, John was stepping over the bike, straddling the leather seat, and pulling Rodney on behind him. "Just try to keep your balance, and we'll be fine."

"Oh, god," Rodney said as John started the engine. He could feel the vibrations through the seat, so he wrapped his arms around John's waist and clung on for dear life. "We're going to die. I can see my life flashing before my eyes. This is so unfair to the scientific community."

He couldn't hear John's laugh, but he could feel John's chest shudder with it. "Relax. It's four blocks."

"I've changed my mind. I want to walk!"

"No, you don't," John said, and Rodney felt a hand quickly squeeze his.

"Hands on the handlebar! Hands on the handlebar!"

The motor revved, becoming louder, and suddenly it was all wind and rushing sidewalks and the certainty of oncoming death. He closed his eyes and buried his head against John's back, waiting for it to be over. His fingers were clawed, probably gripping John's stomach painfully, but imminent death outweighed petty concerns like bruises.

He'd never been happier to get off anything in his entire life.

"Did your life really flash before your eyes?" John asked when they were seated inside.

"Yes, it did." Rodney breathed in deeply, savoring the smell of coffee grounds and sweet, sweet caffeine. The coffee house _almost_ made up for the terrifying ride over. It was half-lit: a necessity for any place that could be serving the first coffee of the day. There was nothing worse than trying to stumble into one of those shockingly bright corporate, yuppie coffeehouses that tried to use fluorescent lighting when dealing with the under-caffeinated. That was plain wrong.

This place was decked out in low armchairs, covered with soft cottons in dark, muted tones. They were grouped in threes and fours, sharing coffee tables that actually matched the armrest height of the chairs.

Also, they made _good_ coffee. Rodney was on his second cup.

"So what were the highlights?"

Rodney blinked. "Of my life?"

"Yeah."

"Getting my PhD, being valedictorian of my high school -- and when I say high school, I mean a highly, highly competitive grading system that made your SATs look damn easy -- and, hmmm, building the nuke in sixth grade. Those would be the top three moments."

"I'm tempted to ask about the nuke," John said with a concerned expression, "but, no. I think there are some things I'm better off not knowing."

"It was a non-working model. I swear, you tell people you built a non-working nuclear bomb in elementary and they have the weirdest reactions." Rodney was soaking in too much delicious coffee to express the proper level of annoyance regarding that topic. "But, yeah, when I say I'm smarter than most of the people you'll meet, I'm really not lying."

John smiled, playing with his untouched cup of coffee. "I assumed you weren't."

"I'm going to win a Nobel, you know," Rodney said and then wished he could go back in time and kick himself. It was one thing being smart and acknowledging the fact; bragging about what you planned to do was asking for bitterness and jealousy. Which Rodney was generally used to, but he didn't want to encourage that reaction from John. "I mean, I plan to. Within the next fifteen years."

"What will you win it for?"

"Astrophysics, obviously. I have some theories about wormhole physics. I just need to be able to prove them." When Rodney looked up, John's eyes were bright and wide. He looked interested, and that was unusual enough to make Rodney stop and choke on his coffee in surprise. When he'd finished coughing -- and that was okay, after all, he didn't need _both_ lungs -- he changed the subject. "Why are you doing this? I mean, the teaching thing. Why put up with this week after week? The pay can't be that good."

John hid his laugh in his coffee cup. When he looked up, there was a blob of foam on his nose. Rodney passed him a napkin and John wiped it off with a disgustingly cute smile, saying, "It's convenient."

"For what? Staying in practice? Don't tell me your life's ambition is to win some competition and be crowned Belle of the Ball."

"I can't resist the sparkling tiara, Rodney. It would suit me."

"In the way that it would cause people to point and laugh at you, yes." Rodney took another mouthful and thanked God for moccachinos with extra chocolate syrup. "You work three jobs. You've got to have some kind of plan."

John licked his lips, and Rodney guessed he was sending a thankful prayer to the coffee gods, too. "You want a Nobel. I want to soar," John said, his eyes glued to the pile of empty sugar packets -- courtesy of Rodney -- that littered the table. "I want to fly."

"Really?" Rodney asked, more than a little charmed by the whimsical, earnest expression on John's face.

"I'm working towards my pilot's license. It's not cheap, so I need the extra income."

"You never thought about, you know, joining the air force?" It was surprisingly easy to imagine John in uniform. Hard to imagine him in such a strict, serious role, but easy to see him in those sharp lines. "Seems like the cheaper way to do it."

"I swore I'd do it on my own." John met Rodney's gaze. His expression was sharp and sure, and Rodney wondered what had forged that angry determination. "I swore I wouldn't follow my father into the military, wouldn't spend my life following someone else's orders."

"Then what? You spend you life flying for Pan Am?"

"Their pilots are all ex-military," John said, his carefree nonchalance back in place. "I want to run my own charter business, fly around California and down to Mexico. Become filthy rich, buy a house on the beach and spend the rest of my days flying and surfing."

"You surf?" It was rhetorical, but John still nodded. "Of course, you surf. I don't know why I'm surprised. You probably go out and purposely taunt the sharks. You're insane."

"No," John said, with a bright grin and a slight tilt of the head, "I'm charmingly eccentric."

"Insane," Rodney repeated, and then emptied his cup.

John looked at him a little funny -- far less offended than most people would be -- then sat up tall and peered over the edge of Rodney's cup. "I'm amazed you can talk and inhale coffee simultaneously."

"It all comes down to efficiency. Careful application of time and motion studies." And slight nerves -- no, _nerves_ wasn't the right word: being around John didn't make him feel nervous. Not exactly. But it make his hands jitter, his gestures grow wilder, and his mouth a little dry.

Being around John brought out his innate showmanship and made Rodney want to be brilliant, and funny, and interesting (whereas normally he only had to be brilliant). Wanted to make John smile, make him laugh, make him stick around a little longer, even while a small part of Rodney's brain -- the shrill voice that niggled at him when a theory was wrong -- was questioning his actions. He was Dr Rodney McKay: he had no need to impress some almost-stranger. Why should he care what John thought of him?

Also, John was… _John_. And that little part of him wondered why John was still here. He had three jobs and a motorcycle. He must have better things to do with his time than sit around drinking coffee with a glorified T.A.. (And if anyone at Berkeley ever called him that, Rodney would inflict serious damage to someone's teaching career.)

"Do you want another?" John asked. He obviously didn't share Rodney's distrust of the situation. Reaching over for Rodney's cup, John tilted his head and deviously whispered, "They make a fantastic peppermint mocha."

"Sure, I--" Then Rodney spotted the LED display of John's watch. He grabbed John's arm, pulling the red plastic wristband closer. With one hand on John's forearm and the other grasping John's hand, Rodney squinted at the time. "Is that correct?"

"Should be," John said, apparently content to let himself be manhandled by a panicking astrophysicist. He didn't pull away and it took Rodney a moment to remember to let go. "Why?"

Groaning, Rodney dropped his head to his hands. This was so typical of his life. "It's Friday, right? I've been seeing the date all day long, and I somehow completely forgot it was the twenty-second."

"What's so special about it?"

"Christine's birthday," Rodney muttered, feeling like an idiot, "but that's not the problem. The problem is that she's having friends for a dinner party and I completely forgot. I think I was supposed to buy the wine. I was concentrating on calculations that seemed far more important at the time, but I'm sure I was supposed to bring something."

"Maybe you can pick up a couple of bottles on the way over?"

"Are you kidding?" Rodney demanded, glaring up at John -- that was willful stupidity, Rodney was sure -- and trying to work out what would be worse. "You think I'm going to leave here, drive around, buy a cheap, nasty bottle of wine and be forgiven for arriving two hours late? I'd be forced to sit at the dinner table and discuss blue-green algae. _Algae_. Pond scum that they can't describe with one color."

The corner of John's mouth quirked up. "As punishment?"

"No." Rodney waved a hand. "Most of Christine's friends are scientists who couldn't handle actual science and retreated to ecology. Last time, they sat around and discussed the mating habits of pandas and dragonflies. Do I look like I would ever, ever want to know about that? No. Because it reaches an incredible, mind-dissolving level of _boring_ that belongs to operating manuals and Johnny Cash songs."

"Rodney." John looked unhappy, mouth caught in a tight frown.

Rodney blinked. "You like operating manuals?"

"I like Johnny Cash." John looked annoyed to have to admit that in public. Rodney understood completely.

He spent a moment debating what to do. He was very, very tempted to call and tell Christine that he'd spent tonight making a theoretical break-through -- theoretical meaning, in this case, imaginary -- and needed to keep working on it while the ideas were clear in his head. She'd believe it. He was pretty sure she'd believe it.

But he'd still have to deal with her sometime, and he didn't want to spend Saturday apologizing for blowing her off. It wasn't worth the extra mocha. Even if it was peppermint with a good reputation -- even if it was free, which automatically made it far sweeter than coffee bought with his own money -- he knew it wasn't what he was supposed to do.

Being a good boyfriend sucked.

"Look, I've got to give Christine a call," Rodney said as he stood up and felt his pockets for his cell. "I'll see you on Monday."

John winked at him. For a moment, he seemed more like a high-school senior than a college graduate. "Good luck."

Rodney nearly dropped his phone, and ended up fumbling for it in an embarrassingly uncoordinated way. Before he could humiliate himself further, he walked out of the coffee house and headed back to his car. On the way, he called Christine and cringed when he got her machine.

"Hey, Christine? I'm sorry. I really am. I completely forgot that Friday was today, and that this Friday was the twenty-second. I'm on my way over to your place now and--"

"Don't bother, Rodney." Christine's voice sounded blurred and distant, but her anger was clear. "Really. Don't do me any favors."

"I didn't do it on purpose. I meant to be there, I just forgot--"

"Yeah, you forgot. Of course, you _forgot_."

Rodney rubbed a hand hard across his face. This was precisely the conversation he'd wanted to avoid; it was the conversation that made staying with John and having another mocha look so appealing. "Christine--"

"Don't. Okay, Rodney? Just don't." There was a quick sigh, and then Rodney could hear someone laughing and calling for Christine in the background, and then he was left listening to nothing as the line went dead.

He flipped his cell over, making sure the battery hadn't come loose again, and then realized she'd hung up on him. That was never a good sign.

On the other hand, it meant he could turn around and walk back to the coffee house without guilt. Christine hadn't wanted him to come over. She'd made that very clear. So he was free to spend his Friday night however he wanted and if that meant harrying John into buying him more coffee, so be it.

Grinning, Rodney hurried his steps, scurrying like the last coffee beans in California were hoarded in that shop. Then he got around the corner and saw that John's motorcycle was gone.

There was nothing stopping him from going inside and buying himself a peppermint mocha. It would still be the same coffee, the same barista, but Rodney wasn't in the mood for it anymore.

The drive home was uneventful, as were Saturday and Sunday. He spent hours proof-reading theses, scribbling heavily in red pen and going so far as to correct their grammar. (The ignorance defied belief: he had grad students who didn't seem to understand that it's was a _contraction_.) The highlight of his day was feeding Angstrom, who would take a moment to purr and rub against his legs after eating.

The lowest point was calling Christine and trying to apologize. He called four times. Each time, he got the machine and was left with a strong suspicion that Christine was standing there, listening to him verbally trip over himself. After the fourth call, where he berated her machine and called it a 'rude, insulting, lumbering waste of electricity and plastic' for beeping at him, Rodney decided to take the defensive, self-righteous position and wait for Christine to contact him.

She found him in the physics lab on Monday afternoon. Her hair was pixie-short and fire-red: she looked like a walking warning of explosive materials.

"You know," she said, when Rodney finished saving his notes and turned around, "you're not very good at apologizing."

"You're not very good at taking an apology, so we seem evenly matched."

She folded her arms, pushing her breasts up. "You left four messages. In one of those, you called my entire family moronic--"

"I didn't mean your family so much as their insistence on formal dances at weddings." Rodney cringed. "It wasn't a personal attack."

Narrowing her eyes, Christine carefully continued. "And then you accused me of flirting with our dance instructor. Please believe me, that is _not_ what's causing your complete lack of dancing ability."

"Well, you do," Rodney said lamely. He was right: she virtually threw herself at John's feet. "He comes over and you're a thirteen-year-old with a crush. You've got to expect me to be a little jealous."

"And you had to bring that up while apologizing for completely missing my birthday party?"

"You said not to come!" Rodney spluttered.

"Because I expected you to be there on time. It was the one day, Rodney, that I expected you to remember. It's written in every calendar you own. And instead--" Christine shrugged, like she didn't know why she bothered. "Instead, you did what you always do. You made your work more important."

"My work is important," Rodney said, waving a hand at the simulations he was currently running. This was ridiculous. He forgot one -- very boring -- social arrangement and Christine had been the one who told him not to come. There was no need to insult him professionally. "You know that."

"It's important to you. But there are other things, things that you don't even notice--"

"And John does?"

"Yes!" Christine's breaths were coming quicker as the color rose in her face. "He noticed. He comments. When I change my hair color, he _mentions_ it. You never notice."

Knowing Christine was partly right didn't make Rodney any happier about it. "I notice."

"You never say anything. Is it any wonder I find myself attracted to a guy who compliments me? Who actually smiles back?"

"If you think John's so wonderful," Rodney said, angry and annoyed and knowing he was saying something stupid, "why aren't you dating him?"

"Because I'm dating you!" Christine almost yelled. "And that's the only reason."

"Then why are you dating me?"

She sucked in a breath, and stopped. The wall clock ticked loudly in the sudden quiet, and Rodney knew this was about to go very, very bad. "I don't know."

"Really?" Rodney asked, swallowing back another dozen questions. That was the only one that mattered.

"I don't know," she repeated. "Habit, maybe?"

"Habit?"

"Convenient habit, I guess. It's not like either of us puts much effort into this. It's... kind of easy." She shrugged, and then her gaze dropped to the floor. "But it's not going to be anymore, is it?"

"No, I don't think so," Rodney said and then turned around and walked out the door, out of the building, and off the campus before he remembered he'd driven in that morning so his car was still parked there. He decided to pay for a cab home, instead.

He sat on the couch, feeling numb and tired, a little relieved and more than a little guilty about being relieved. They'd met randomly at a staff function, both of them going home early. They didn't work with each other or live together. They barely ever drove in together. It was frightening how little it was going to change his life.

When the phone rang, he picked it up without bothering to look at the caller ID. "Yes?"

"Rodney?"

"No, it's the King of Spain," Rodney said, but his voice sounded flat.

"Are you okay?"

"John?" It took him that long to realize who he was talking to. And people thought he was a genius. "Why are you calling me?"

"We had a lesson booked in for tonight, and you didn't show. Are you okay? Because you're being quiet, and when I'm the talkative one in our conversations, something is wrong."

"Oh. I'm fine." He was, really. He was still in a small amount of shock, was all. "I don't think I'll have any more lessons."

"Why not?" John sounded concerned. That was why the lessons were popular: John had the perfect way of faking that he cared. It was oddly endearing.

"I was only learning for Christine's cousin's wedding. And now it's off."

"The wedding?"

"No," Rodney said, rubbing at his eyes, "Christine. I mean, me and Christine. Christine and I. It's over."

John made a small sigh of regret. Rodney would feel the same if he'd been paid in advance, and then had to return the money.

"Keep the advance payment. Consider it a bonus. And, um. Thanks. For the lessons." Rodney hung up the phone. He stared at it for a few minutes, then he dragged himself off the couch, heated up a microwave dinner and ate it in front of a Star Trek re-run. At least he didn't have to go through the pains of dance classes anymore. He'd miss the sex, but the lack of dancing would be a big improvement.

See, he was thinking about the positives already.

In fact, he dozed off thinking about the positives and was woken up by someone ringing on his doorbell. Ringing twice, and then knocking, and then ringing again for good measure.

If it was Christine, she had a key -- Rodney wouldn't be surprised if it turned up in his mailbox next week -- and there was no one else he wanted to speak to. The banging continued, but Rodney was good at ignoring the obvious: he'd raised that skill to an art form.

The amount of maudlin self-pity in that thought made Rodney sneer at himself. If he was going to be annoyed, he should at least get to yell at someone else. Huffing, he walked over to the door.

"What?" he demanded as he opened the door. John looked taken aback, his finger hovering over the doorbell button. "You think if you keep hitting that over and over, it'll drive me insane and I'll be forced to open the door for you? It doesn't work like that."

"Except it did." Rocking back on his heels, John looked… well, like John. Blue jeans that gave a vague impression of being too tight, black T-shirt, black leather jacket. A pair of wide aviator glasses that should have looked far worse on him. "Anyway, you sounded--"

"I don't need lessons anymore because I just broke up with my girlfriend, so it's none of your concern how I sound," Rodney said, but he stepped back and let John walk inside. "Why are you here?"

"You paid in advance. I wanted to make sure you got what you paid for. Word-of-mouth is important."

Rodney rolled his eyes. "I'm not going to go around complaining that I went to this dance school and all I got was a lousy T-shirt."

"It would make me feel better." Somewhere, there was a law against grown men using hangdog eyes and the hint of a pout to get their way. Obviously, John had no sense of shame. "You wouldn't want me to feel guilty, would you, Rodney?"

Rodney closed the door to allow himself time, to remember that he inspired fear into the hearts of lecturers and grad students alike. "How about one last lesson and we call it even?"

"I don't have any music," John peeled off his jacket, "but that's fine with me."

Then it was back to familiar ground, John's hand against his, light fingers on his shoulder, and moving in sync. At least he'd learnt something, although being able to dance with John -- _only_ with John -- wasn't the world's most useful skill.

"So," John drawled, "you broke up?"

"Over you, actually." Rodney sighed. Of all the stupid reasons to break up, getting jealous over the gorgeous dance instructor was utterly ludicrous. Like a guy who looked like John -- flat abs, and broad shoulders, and mischievous smile -- would be interested in a middling-attractive academic like Christine.

"Oh." John's breath skated across the side of Rodney's neck as they turned and moved around the cramped space of his living room. "Why me?"

"You'll laugh, it's really-- I mean, there are levels of pathetic and then way below that, there are stupid break-ups." Rodney stepped forward and John moved with him, seamlessly, like he knew precisely where Rodney was going. Which he did, since it was a structured dance. "Let's just say that one of us liked you in a way that had nothing to do with dancing, and the other got ridiculously jealous."

"Huh."

"The really stupid thing is that there was no real reason to end it. Nothing happened. Nothing would have happened."

"Well, no." John gave a tight grin and shrugged, leaning a little closer to Rodney as they moved. "I'm not the type to make a pass at someone who's attached. It's kind of sleazy."

Rodney stopped moving, pulled his hands away from the softness of John's t-shirt. "But you would have?"

"If you and Christine weren't dating?" John ran his tongue across his upper lip. "Yeah."

Rodney couldn't explain it. They'd broken up -- and he wasn't going to apologize, not to an answering machine, not again -- so it shouldn't matter that someone else was interested in her. It shouldn't matter that some guy -- some guy who looked like an advertising agent's wet dream, who got math jokes, and almost had dimples when he smiled, and wanted to soar -- liked her.

It shouldn't make him feel any worse.

But it did.

"Okay, that wasn't precisely the reaction I was hoping for."

"Am I supposed to give you my blessing?" Rodney swallowed. It _hurt_ , and he'd always been better at lashing out than stoic acceptance. "Did you want me to say 'Go get her, champ' and give you her number?"

John blinked, and then his eyes widened until white completely surrounded the hazel. "You don't do things by halves."

"What?"

"When you get the wrong idea, you _really_ get the wrong idea."

"What the hell--" Rodney's complaints were muffled by John kissing him. Rodney froze, completely stopped -- stopped breathing, stopped thinking -- and waited for... something. For something other than John's soft, smoky lips on his, pressing lightly with only the slightest hint of suction.

He was waiting for fireworks or explosions. Something loud and overwhelming. Something weird and harsh. Not this surreal sweetness, this dream-like, impossibly gentle touch.

Brushing his fingers across Rodney's cheek, John pulled back. "I wasn't interested in Christine."

"Oh."

John smiled -- almost-dimples and everything -- and Rodney found himself nodding nervously.

"To make this perfectly clear, because for a genius, you're not that smart," John said, standing so close that Rodney could feel his chest move as he breathed, "I'm interested in you. I was always interested in you. Any problems with that?"

"Some of the details are new to me." Swallowing, Rodney settled a hand on John's bicep, trailing a finger over the sewn edge of John's sleeve. His heart was beating rapidly, and he could feel his neck tense up as he leaned forward, but once he pressed his mouth to John's, it was astoundingly easy to kiss him. "But I've got the gist of the mechanics."

"Good to know."

Then they were kissing again. The differences were minor: leaning up instead of down (noticing that John was slightly taller than him) and the vague smell of salt air and city traffic (instead of cloyingly sweet perfume). The similarities -- wet, soft mouth, warm hands on his shoulders, smooth cheek under his fingertips -- were more surprising.

Leaving his fingers on the stretch of John's cheek, Rodney leaned away. "You shaved before coming here? That's unbearably arrogant."

"It's called being prepared for all eventualities," John said, looking slightly cross-eyed at the close distance.

Rodney closed his eyes and leaned forward, towards warmth and kissing -- and, huh, he was probably the world's worst boyfriend to be kissing someone else a few hours after they'd broken up; on the other hand, go him! -- and nearly jumped out of his skin when something vibrated against his hip.

John laughed and pressed a quick kiss to his lips. "I have to get this," he said, pulling his cell phone out of his pocket and grimacing.

Rodney watched John answer it -- "Pegasus Dance School," John said, voice showing no annoyance -- long legs pacing the floor as he talked about time and place, running a finger along the spines of Rodney's books as he agreed and nodded.

It occurred to Rodney that he could be slightly out of his depth here. John was, for lack of a better term, _John_ and Rodney was, well... hmmm. Tonight had been surreal and the only thing stopping Rodney from panicking and arguing against this was quantum physics. He believed in theories that stated there was always a possibility of wildly improbable things happening.

But they normally didn't happen to Dr Rodney McKay.

"You've done this before, right?" Rodney asked as John slipped the phone back into his pocket. "This is something you do all the time, right?"

John blinked, and his lips twitched like they didn't know whether to smile or frown. "Contrary to your low opinion of me, I don't make a habit of picking up my students."

"Not the student thing." Rodney rolled his eyes. "The... well, the guy thing. Because I think at least one of us should know what we're doing here, and that really isn't me."

John laughed. Actually, he covered his mouth and made a small, snuffling sound, but Rodney knew it was a laugh. "I know what I'm doing."

"And I'm supposed to take your word for it?"

"Yes." John dragged the word between his teeth, like he was talking to someone very, very slow and sat down beside him on the couch.

Sitting up a little straighter, Rodney continued, "How do I know that your idea of knowledge is the same as mine? For all I know, you could have done this three times and consider that enough to know what you're doing, whereas I'd still consider that fumbling in ignorance."

"Hmm," John said, leaning across and pressing his face against Rodney's neck. Not kissing or licking, just hovering there, breath hot against Rodney's skin. It made Rodney think of dancing lessons, of John's bare skin against his back and John's laugh muffled against his shoulder. "Are you stalling for a reason?"

"I-- I value knowledge." Rodney voice didn't crack on that last word. Really. "I dislike incompetence. And being taught by somebody who doesn't know what he's doing is a bad idea. A really bad idea. It leads to... bad things."

John's hand slid down to Rodney's stomach and started pulling at the hem of his T-shirt, gathering it into his hand. "I know what I'm doing. I've been dating guys since high school. What do you want, a CV with a list of references?"  
Then there was a hot hand against his bare skin and Rodney found it easy to gasp and hard to think.

"Um," he said after a moment, "that would be good."

"Well, first would be Matt Stevens, but I haven't seen him since the high school reunion."

"Let me guess," Rodney said, imagining locker rooms and showers as John traced symbols up his ribcage, "he was captain of the football team?"

"No." John punctuated his point with a quick bite to Rodney's neck. Rodney groaned and dug his fingers into John's back, squirming as John carefully licked the tender spot. "I was a junior, he was a senior. He was head of the Science Club."

"Really?" Rodney turned to face John, and hit John's cheek with his jawbone in a way that wasn't pleasant or attractive. "Sorry."

With a quick shake of his head, John ignored the apology. "I have a type. Matt in high school, my Advanced Calc TA in college, and do I need to go on? I like 'em smart."

"Oh," Rodney said. He blinked a few times. And then blinked again. "You know that makes you pretty weird, right?"

"But it's a good weird."

"Well, yeah," Rodney said as John kissed him. It was good: warm and wet, and a neutron star of a kiss, which made absolutely no sense as a metaphor, Rodney realized. Because this wasn't unknown and fast and self-destructive. This was slow and planned, with John's tongue moving against his lip so slowly that it was driving him a little bit crazy. But maybe, maybe the gravity force was right because Rodney wanted to pull away, wanted to divide this experience down into manageable pieces, and was powerless to break the soft, steady connection.

"I don't do this," was the first thing out of his mouth when John pulled back. "This sleeping with new people on the day I break up with the old person. Well, not the old person as in geriatric, but the other person I was dating. This isn't what I do."

John looked blindsided, like Rodney had just confessed his carnal love for turkeys.

"I can't believe I'm saying this, because, yeah, how often do I get the chance to sleep with a seriously hot stranger -- I mean, at any time, not just on bad break-up days -- but this really isn't something I do. And," Rodney cringed, wishing that his brain wasn't so big and brilliant, because that was he could ignore it like most of the population, "I don't think I can go through with this."

John nodded, and sat back on the other end of the couch. The warm hand on Rodney's hip was gone; likewise, the warm puff of breath against his shoulder. It kind of sucked.

"Which is not that I don't want to do this, but if I do, it's going to feel like some cheap rebound thing and it isn't. At least, I don't think it is, because I've never done the rebound thing so I'd be surprised if I suddenly started now. On the other hand, you're very hot. And I don't have hot people throwing themselves at me. So… I've just reached the part of this conversation where I don't know what I'm saying."

"You're saying that you're not comfortable with this because you've just broken up with someone." John leaned an arm over the back of the couch and rested his chin in the crook of his elbow. He had one leg curled up on the seat, and Rodney's libido was taking vicious pleasure in pointing out what he'd missed out on.

"Yeah." Rodney had seen the guy shirtless. He was well aware what he was missing out on. "What about, I don't know, getting together sometime this weekend?"

"Can't," John said with a shrug, standing up. "I'm busy this weekend."

Rodney sighed. He knew a polite brush-off when he heard one. (He'd heard a lot.) Of course the once in a lifetime opportunity -- to sleep with someone really, really hot -- would come when he'd feel guilty to enjoy it. John was standing up and getting his jacket, and Rodney knew he'd be out the door soon, and away on his motorcycle and Rodney would never see him again, and it sucked so much that he listened to his stupid conscience.

Stupid, stupid conscience.

Then John said, "Are you free next Saturday?" and Rodney nearly whooped in victory.

"I should be."

"We hold regular dances. It's a combination of rewarding the students and maintaining a good reputation." John gave him a crunched up piece of pale green paper. The Pegasus Dance School logo was only just visible in the top corner. "It starts at eight but I have to help with the prep work, so I'll meet you there."

There were eight days between John walking out his door -- calling back, "And wear a suit!" over his shoulder -- and the dance. Rodney would have thought he'd spend more time worrying about the sudden gay desire, but he didn't. Partly because his type had always relied on fairly superficial qualities -- blonde and stacked -- and he could still see the appeal, especially when Justine Clarence (chemistry admin-girl and Rodney's living wet dream) strode by. Partly because John was gorgeous, and thought Rodney was smart, and liked him for that, and Rodney could overlook trifles like sexual orientation for the sake of fantastic sex.

But mainly it was because he spent most of the week thinking, and occasionally saying out loud, "My grad students are the special type of stupid this year." There was Adrian who was supposed to be researching black holes, only he'd been studying red dwarfs three months ago, and now wanted to change topics again. Jeanette -- who was bright and competent, if not insightfully brilliant -- seemed to have forgotten that even a thesis needs some type of conclusion, and she'd blinked tearfully behind those huge glasses of hers when he pointed that out.

His best hope of the lot was Peter. His theories were very good but his calculations were fatally flawed, in a way that Rodney couldn't pinpoint until five thirty on Saturday morning. When he did, he called Peter; the pair of them worked on it, in the blissfully empty (well, emptier since science didn't always stop for weekends) labs, until ten.

When he woke up, it was twenty past seven at night. There was an irritating tug at the back of his brain, the thought that he'd forgotten something, and then he realized. Dance recital. John. The need to wear a suit.

He jumped in the shower and then threw on the suit, so glad he'd pressed the shirt and gotten it ready on Wednesday night. He called a cab and turned up only twenty minutes late.

Inside was a lot more crowded than he'd expected. Either the beginners class was one of their smallest or they had a lot of classes. Lots of women in skirts and heels; lots of men in business suits. He fitted in fairly well with his navy pinstripe -- he'd been a little concerned about that. He didn't wear suits on a daily basis. This one was his interview suit, the one he wore every time he got called into the Dean's office and asked why one of his grad students threatened to jump off a window-sill again. (It had only happened twice. And that was from the same highly strung student who'd threatened, both times, from the first floor.)

Everyone was standing on the dance floor, listening to some woman thank them for coming. Rodney edged through the crowd until he could see John, standing in the center of the little clearing. Rodney had the sneaking suspicion someone had once told John black was slimming. First those black t-shirts, now black shirts. Combined with a black suit, and possibly, a black tie. Rodney didn't need to look down to know that John would have the matching black shoes shined to a polish.

John was standing with two women, who were a riot of color in comparison. To John's left was a brunette in a jungle green dress, talking into a microphone. To her left, stood an obviously-fake redhead, wearing a mango-colored thing that was split up to her thighs and had a cut-out revealing a taut, caramel stomach.

Not so long ago, he would have been lusting after the redhead, not watching John smile lazily at the crowd, gaze never lingering in any place for too long. Then John looked at him, the smile widened, shifting from charming to genuine. John waggled his eyebrows at him.

The brunette stopped talking and the music started: loud and brash and something Latin, the tango or cha-cha, something Rodney didn't know. The people around him started moving, dividing into couples or heading for the few tables scattered around, and Rodney lost sight of John.

Rodney headed off the dance floor, thinking that would make it easier to see, but it still took him a minute to spot John amongst the crowd.

John was dancing with the redhead, lean hips twisting with the beat and legs moving faster than should be possible. There were spins and kicks, and the shimmies were rather devastating. The lean lines of John's suit emphasized strong shoulders and slim hips. No man should have been able to move like that.

Then he lifted her over one arm, and she spun upside down, legs pinwheeling over her head and landing flat on the floor, stepping into the next move without a pause.

Rodney realized he was staring with his mouth open and quickly shut it.

At least he wasn't the only one mesmerized. There were groups sitting at the tables, watching John with a combination of envy and awe. Rodney understood completely. Then the song changed, one Latin beat blurring into another, and the dance loosened up and got comfortable, let its metaphorical hair down and boogied on a table top.

There were less of the sharp leg movements, and more swaying, their hips constantly touching in a way that was fully-clothed and completely obscene. By the time that dance ended, Rodney's mouth was dry.

John, apparently, was fine. He kept dancing, through the next song and the next. Then he changed partners and danced with the brunette. And after a song, switched back to the redhead.

Then the music changed, slowed from the hip-swiveling Latin beat to something more formal, more sedate. It took Rodney a moment to recognize it as the waltz, but that was only because he was watching John disentangle and saunter across the dance floor.

"Hey," Rodney said, because it seemed like the kind of thing you said to a guy who'd made out with you, invited you to his dance school's recital, and then spent the night dancing with a series of graceful, gorgeous women.

John held out his hand. "Want to dance?"

John didn't look out of breath. Not even a little, which was kind of unfair. The collar of the shirt was still high and starched; the tie lay flat on his shirt, hiding in the camouflage of black-on-black.

"Here? Seriously? I mean, you know what I'm like. And the number of people I could step on or fall over is little intimidating." Behind John, there were couples starting to dance. You could tell the beginners by the way they fumbled as they started, and took a few steps to find the beat. "I'm sure you'd look a lot better dancing with someone else. Like, anyone else here."

Rodney could feel himself edging back from the dance floor, but John smiled and kept holding his hand in mid-air. Rodney almost felt embarrassed for him.

"I'm expected to come here and put on a show. I've done that." John added a grin, a sharp flash of teeth -- the same teeth that had left Rodney with hickies like some oversexed teen -- and stepped closer. "Now dance with me."

"What about Miss Midriff over there?" Rodney pointed at the redhead, ignoring the stretch of John's hand waiting for his.

"Trisha? She prefers the faster beats, which is why she teaches the Latin dances. Besides, I know you can waltz."

Rodney didn't like public humiliation. He didn't like setting himself up for a fall, and that was what John was asking him to do. To dance in front of a crowd of strangers and prove that he sucked at this. There was no way he was masochistic enough to agree.

"Okay." Except -- apparently -- he was.

John grabbed his hand and tugged him towards the dance floor. Right into the middle, Rodney noticed with a touch of relief, where the crowd would hide them. Then he settled one hand on Rodney's shoulder and slid the other to hold Rodney's hand, and waited.

Rodney blinked. "I'm supposed to lead, aren't I?"

"Any time now."

"You realize how bad this is going to look, right? This isn't going to lead to some magical transformation to grace. It might lead to knocking over other couples, but not-- not--" Rodney stuttered to a stop as John ran his thumb down the side of Rodney's neck. "That's cheating."

"Sorry," John said, but the lift of his brows told Rodney he wasn't sorry at all.

"Okay, fine," Rodney said, and started moving, "be like that. You'll only have yourself to blame."

It wasn't graceful. It didn't help that everyone in the room seemed to be staring at them. Not just the people from the beginners' class, which Rodney could understand, but also a range of carefully made-up women whose smoky eyes followed John as their red lips caught in puzzled frowns.

"There's a lot of women watching you," Rodney said, peering over John's shoulder and forgetting to turn.

"Ever watch Dirty Dancing?"

Discretion was the greater part of valor, and lying was unquestionably the best way to go. "I think that was the one style-challenged 80's musical that I skipped."

"A lot of the girls who learn to dance have seen it. Many, many times. There's a certain romanticism to being taught to dance by a guy called Johnny." John leaned closer, his smooth cheek brushing against Rodney's hastily shaved stubble. John's breath was warm against his ear. "It gets old, fast."

"Oh." Rodney blinked as John's face came back into view, hazel eyes and quirked brows, and parted lips only inches from Rodney's mouth. John licked his lips and then smiled. "What?"

"I was wondering when you'd notice."

"Your sphinx-like riddles are not endearing."

"When you'd notice," John said, managing to roll his eyes in a way that, well, was endearing, "that you're dancing with me, not the rest of the room."

Over John's shoulder, there were other couples dancing, and behind that, people watching. Flocks of girls in candy-colored dresses stood in twos and threes, heads bowed together as they talked, eyes never leaving John. But if he watched John, kept his attention focused on the gold specks in his eyes, or the small twitches of eyebrow, they were easy to forget. It felt like a private lesson, almost as if there was no-one there to laugh at him when he inevitably tripped. "I've never been comfortable with public performance."

"Then it's a little amazing that you've got a PhD." When John spoke, he ducked his head a little closer. It was completely unnecessary. Rodney wanted him to do it again.

"Presentations, where I know what I'm talking about, that's different."

"Uh-huh?"

"I'm not going to make a fool of myself when I know the subject matter. Defending a dissertation is easy when you know that you're right. It's a simple case of making everyone else understand that they're morons and they need to shut up, sit down and start taking notes in the hope that eventually, one day, they will understand my brilliance."

They turned, John's feet shadowing Rodney's, and John said sweetly, "You must be popular at conventions." Rodney nodded twice before he realized John was being sarcastic.

"For your information, I am well-known and liked amongst my peers. Well, maybe not liked, but certainly respected. And I always get invited to the most important conventions."

"Do you get to sit with the cool kids, too?"

"I get to make the cool kids cry," Rodney replied with a smirk. John's eyes widened for a second as he laughed, ducking his chin close to his chest. His hand was on the small of John's back; under the smooth jacket, Rodney could feel muscle shake as John laughed. It made him feel bold. "Feel free to laugh it up, because I'm serious. At this stage, it's a tradition. I attend, tear down someone's idiotic theory and make them cry bitter tears of envy. At the last convention, I broke two astrophysicists and one engineer. It's a personal record."

John laughed harder, hiccupping breaths as Rodney continued.

"My personal favorite was Bernstein, who had the nerve to suggest that one of equations was wrong as I hadn't factored in gravity. Gravity! As if I'd forget a force so basic, so intrinsic to our understanding of the galaxy. Please. It was there, clear enough for anyone with half a brain, and he was using it as a petty, pathetic attempt to humiliate me in front of the scientific community."

Step, turn, forward, across, back: Rodney barely noticed the steps he was taking. It was partly because of the way that John had dropped his forehead to Rodney's shoulder, still sniggering, and partly due to the warmth of John's hand in his, the steady pressure of torso against torso, legs against legs. If he stopped and thought about it, he'd lose the rhythm and stutter to a halt, so he kept talking.

"My response was a thing of beauty, honestly. Not only did I point out his amazingly huge and unfounded assumptions but I also exposed him for the fool he was, proved that he really had no idea of the intrinsic complexities of the universe and that he had no business criticizing what was obviously beyond his capabilities. You need to picture this middle-aged man, graying hair, flannel shirt, full of pompous self-importance reduced to tears while dozens of his academic betters looked on. I heard he had a mental breakdown after that and ended up teaching in some high-school in the Midwest."

"There is nothing I can say to that." John stepped back, and Rodney belated realized the music had stopped and something new was starting.

"I think you could say thank you. I'm protecting the world from incredible stupidity. I deserve awe and admiration."

"Yeah, you're a real hero," John said, patting Rodney on the back and walking them towards the drinks table. "There should be bronze statues of you at every university."

"I wouldn't say _every_ university. There are some schools I wouldn't want my name associated with."

There weren't a lot of choices when it came to drinks. It came down to soda, cheap beer, an ambiguous fruit punch or white wine mixed with orange juice. Two of those were deadly, one was just terrible, and Rodney settled on a coke. John copied him, and Rodney was distracted thinking how well that boded in general -- and specifically for kissing that night -- when a blonde sidled over.

She was exactly Rodney's type, meaning she had cleavage you could drown in. The way she smiled at John put Rodney's teeth on edge.

"John." She drawled the word, dragging it between her teeth like a terrier with a rat. "Long time, no see."

She turned out to be the first of many but she set the pattern pretty well: attractive -- definite head-turner -- flirtatious and amazingly pleased to see John. The conversations all started with them saying his name, like they had some special claim to it, followed by a moment of small talk and then asking John to dance.

To John's credit, each time he smiled as if he was genuinely flattered -- instead of Stalker Monthly's latest target -- and said that he was with someone tonight. After the third girl looked around the room, obviously hunting for that mysterious someone, Rodney burst out with, "Me, you simpering idiot!"

It wasn't his finest moment.

But when the fourth girl came, John's hand settled on his shoulder and he pre-empted her offer to dance with, "And this is Rodney. He's a... friend." He said 'friend' like he was talking dirty, like something intimate and detailed and X-rated. Rodney could feel his ears burn.

The girl disappeared at record-speed.

As he watched her go, Rodney asked, "How soon can you leave?"

A slow blink, and John's easy smile paused. "Do you want to go? They'll play another few waltzes soon."

"I want to go," Rodney said, hoping John would get the hint, "back to your place. Now."

John's smile was a happy, inverted caret. "We can do that."

John quickly bade goodbye to the redhead and the brunette (Trisha and Buffy, names better suited to cheerleaders than dance instructors) and then they left. There was a brief discussion about the mode of transport -- "You rode a motorcycle? To a function where you'd be drinking alcohol? In a suit that would tear like tissue paper the second it hit asphalt? Amoebas have stronger life preservation instincts than you." -- before they hailed a cab.

Rodney found himself tensing, sitting bolt upright in the backseat and thinking about kissing John, slobbering all over him like a teenagers trying to get past second base. The trip passed in a silence that was not entirely comfortable.

John Sheppard turned out to be a man of contradictions: his entire life seemed to revolve around getting off the ground but he lived in a basement apartment. There were a few windows set close to the ceiling, showing darkness and the occasional pair of ankles walking past.

"Either this place has really cheap rent or you have very bad taste," Rodney said, looking at the off-white walls, plaster cracking in the corners. They were bare, apart from a large monochrome poster of Johnny Cash walking forward. It loomed over the black futon couch and the simple coffee table. Rodney noted that John had a stereo but no TV. The kitchen made one corner of the room: a fridge, a sink, a grey bench top with a kettle and a camping hotplate. "And when I say cheap, I mean the month's rent should still be in double digits."

"Rodney?" John leaned one hip against the back of the couch, deft fingers pulling his tie loose. "I've seen your place."

"Yes, you have. It has windows and natural light, and enough space to swing a cat. Not that I've ever tried to do that, and I'm certainly not suggesting that you try, because you should be warned that Angstrom has sharp claws and an innate skill at targeting major arteries."

"Anyone who decorates with piles of notes and discarded t-shirts," John said, pulling the tie free and tugging open the top button of his shirt, "loses the right to criticize my place."

Rodney didn't know where to look. Staring at John's neck, at the exposed golden skin framed by black cotton, seem sordid, desperate. But lowering his gaze left him staring at the curve of John's hip, the long line of his thighs. Which was worse. Rodney swallowed and turned to Johnny Cash for reassurance.

John's place was a dive -- cheap, dingy, and the only thing that stopped it from being cluttered was that John barely had any furniture in the room -- but it was clean and neat. No magazines were spread across the table, no empty mugs had gathered around the couch. It was smooth and minimalist, as far as you could get from Rodney's messy, cluttered -- and, okay, somewhat grubby -- apartment.

He was standing in the middle of John's carefully tidied living room, wearing a pinstriped suit and an ugly tie, as alien as a humanities major in the physics lab. Rodney hadn't felt this out of place since he'd let his then-girlfriend talk him into going to the Alpha Kappa Whatever party. Using empirical evidence -- sweating palms, general anxiety, the tight band around his ribs -- Rodney had to conclude that one John Sheppard was far more intimidating than an entire crowd of frat jocks and their life-sized Barbies.

"So. Um." Rodney wiped his hands on his pants and stared at the poster, willing inspiration to strike. Mr Cash wasn't very helpful. "You like country music, huh?"

"You want to talk about my musical tastes?"

"No." Rodney kept watching the cuff of Cash's shirt. He though he heard John moving closer, but he might have been wrong. He didn't look.

"So what do you want to do?"

John sounded closer, but Rodney figured that as long as he kept staring at the poster, he could ignore the queasy feeling in his stomach and the jittery urge to run and hide.

"I was planning on, well, not that I had a plan as such. It was more of a vague idea. A direction. The direction of your bed and being naked. I hadn't thought much past that. Bed. Nakedness. Those two things together. Seemed like a good idea."

"Cool," was John's monosyllabic reply. While it was certainly a positive response, it lacked the important details, like what John wanted and what John had expected and if John even owned a bed where the aforementioned nudity could occur.

Rodney didn't like being uncertain. He didn't mind waiting -- waiting for simulations, waiting for data, waiting for reviews -- as long as he knew what was happening, what role he was supposed to play. He didn't know if he should look at John or not, didn't know if he was supposed to stay quiet or, if not, what he was supposed to say. More than that, he didn't want to say the wrong thing.

So far, John appeared entertained by Rodney's outbursts and idiosyncrasies -- which in and of itself was highly unusual -- but surely there must be a limit. Somewhere there had to a line. There had to be a division between entertaining and annoying, between interesting and not worth the effort.

His palms were moist and he felt slightly nauseous, and Rodney was too afraid of getting it wrong to even try. It was cowardly and moronic: two words Rodney had never applied to his own behaviour. He told himself to say something, say anything -- to talk before John concluded he was an absolute idiot -- but it didn't help.

Then John stepped up behind him, chest solid against Rodney's back, breath searing the side of his neck as arms wrapped around Rodney's waist. The roiling tension inside Rodney eased as if John was absorbing it, dispersing it, with every slow breath.

"Is this okay?" John asked carefully.

"It's not your bed and it's not naked, but it's a start."

John chuckled. "Come on then," he said and led Rodney to the bedroom, one hand cinched around Rodney's wrist.

Rodney had a fleeting realization that John's bed was wide and suitable -- and far more supporting that he would have guessed -- as John pressed him down and started kissing him.

John's kisses were slow and light, all lips and barely any tongue. It felt like that first time, soft and warm and dreamlike. Rodney couldn't understand why that made him edgy. Made him pull John down, drag him closer and push a leg between John's thighs.

The bed moved as John rocked against him, making small choked groans that Rodney was sure he'd be able to taste if he could get deep enough inside John's mouth.

He ran a hand down John's back, tugging at John's shirt, pulling it out of his pants. He yanked it up and off, leaving John to curse and fumble with the cuff buttons as Rodney ran fingers and nails across the damp skin of John's back.

He was mesmerized by the changing terrain under his fingertips, by the muscles shifting and moving with every erratic thrust of John's hips. It was even better when Rodney slid his hands lower, under the tight waistband of John's pants, creeping under the cotton of briefs and digging into the firm curves of John's ass. John stuttered his name like he was dying, like he was being reborn, and god, it was good.

There was a blur of pulling off clothes, his and John's, of kicking shoes across the room and pushing down trousers, but Rodney was far too busy skimming greedy hands across John's skin to pay much attention.

Afterwards, he remembered only a few sharp details. John's briefs were black -- the man color coordinated all the way to his underwear -- and the bones of John's hips dug into his palms as he pushed the briefs down. He remembered the coarse feel of pubic hair, the taste and weight of John on his tongue, the sight of John stretched out on his back, hands twisting in the pale sheet.

He gagged when John thrust up, choked and had to stop and breathe. As he blinked rapidly, John gasped apologies and pulled him up, kissed him open-mouthed and sloppy. John was desperate and hard, sweat-slicked hair sticking to his forehead. It was so easy to reach for him, to get him off with a few sharp, firm strokes.

When John came, he was clutching Rodney's shoulders, and when Rodney rolled off, John followed, curling onto his side. He hooked one hairy thigh over Rodney's, and Rodney waited for his breathing to even out before speaking.

"You have a dictionary around here, right?"

John puffed against his neck, warm and sly. "Somewhere. Why?"

"In case I need to explain the meaning of reciprocity." It came out a little sharper than intended.

"Give me a moment," John muttered, still a dead weight against Rodney's side, "and I'll reciprocate until you can't see straight."

"That's an unfortunate rhyme, there."

"Would you have preferred it in haiku?"

"You could do that?"

John raised himself up on an elbow. "No."

"Oh. Well. That would have been really impressive." Then John's hand moved under the sheet and curled around Rodney's thigh. John's thumb rested in the crease between leg and groin, and Rodney almost gasped when it brushed higher. "But that's good. That's impressive too."

It turned out that John's hand on his cock was even better -- slow, sure pulls, twisting his palm over the head -- but that was nothing compared to John's mouth. The sight of John's lips stretched around him, the way John hummed until Rodney could feel the vibrations in his bones, the sensation of John swallowing around him, the muscles of John's throat working around the head of his cock...

It left Rodney speechless and empty, hollowed out by John's tongue and hands. For once, the constant background noise in his brain paused, and he fell asleep to silence.

When he woke up, it was dark. He was in an unfamiliar bed and someone was snoring loudly beside him. His first thought was that he'd had some guy's dick in his mouth. His second was that he'd come in that same guy's mouth. His third was that he had to get out there now.

Rodney would have liked to believe that he was more mature than that, more open-minded. If he was, he wouldn't have woken up and panicked, wouldn't have sneaked out bed, grabbed his clothes and left. He wouldn't have taken a cab home and unplugged his phone, but that was what he did.

He sat on his couch and let Angstrom curl up on his lap, and spent a few hours trying to think about anything other than John Sheppard. He mulled over Peter's numbers, tried to think about the curves of parabolas and black holes, not the arch of John's back and the curl of his smile.

He was being ridiculous, he knew it. So he plugged his phone back in, took a long, long shower, and then headed over to the campus. There, he could bury himself in research and theories; he could focus this annoyance, this simmering unease, into something productive. It was much better than sitting there and hearing John talk into his machine, saying, "Hey, I just wanted to check that you made it home safely," and "You know my number, give me a call."

And if he wanted to spend the night camped out on the physics departments overstuffed, uncomfortable couch, he could.

Monday passed slowly. He felt gritty and tired, like he was still a student working on his doctorate, one of the unwashed intellectuals that haunted the computer labs. The minutes ground by, but he forced himself to work on overdue papers and half-finished theories, doing simulations and calculations in the insulated safety of his office.

He drove home after midnight, and found another three messages waiting for him. The first was John, calling to make sure he actually had John's number. The second and the third he deleted as soon as he heard John's voice.

He took particular pains not to grumble through his grad student appointments on Tuesday, but all that achieved was Christine knocking on his door that afternoon.

Her hair was still red, still short, but she didn't look angry any more. "You are okay, right?"

"Why do you ask?"

"I overheard a few students complain. Apparently, you've been enthusiastic and encouraging all day. You're scaring them." She raised her brows for a moment, and the gesture was so familiar Rodney smiled. "Also, I wanted an excuse to talk to you."

"I'm fine," Rodney said, because he was. Sort of. If you didn't count the way he kept dialing John's number and stopping before the last digit. If you ignored the way he kept questioning his own actions, the way everything felt wrong, and off. "What did you want to talk about?"

"You left some stuff at my place. A couple books, a video. A backpack. I want you to come get it."

That was how he ended up at Christine's apartment at eight that night. She said, "Come in," and "Have a drink," so he did. Following logic that only applies to interpersonal relationships and quantum probability, that led to her kissing him on the cheek, which led to him kissing her back -- mouth against mouth -- and sex was somehow inevitable.

It wasn't bad sex.

It was comfortable. And familiar. And lots of other reassuring words that made Rodney think of patterns and standard deviations, and expected data as he slid inside her, as he cupped the softness of breasts and thighs and cellulite, kissed lipstick-smeared lips and tasted the alcoholic sting of perfume on her neck.

It wasn't frightening. It didn't force him to think about who he was, to think about what he wanted. It didn't make him feel inexperienced and uncertain, and excited as if he was spinning out of control. It was safe. It was expected. It was _easy_.

That realization was enough to make him regret it. To make him rethink the entire situation as he lay on his back, staring up at her ceiling.

"I think this was a bad idea," he said slowly and was relieved when Christine didn't argue, didn't profess her undying love, didn't try to convince him otherwise.

She just nodded and said, "I should have paid for a courier for your stuff."

Rodney laughed. He couldn't help it.

Christine's smile didn't reach her eyes. "I'm going to have a shower. Let yourself out."

When he got home, he stacked his reclaimed stuff on the couch and headed straight for the machine. There was one slow blink of light, one message from John. It started with a sigh, and Rodney knew that had to be bad.

"Hey, it's me. I just... thought I might catch you. Don't worry about calling me back."

That was the moment Rodney knew he'd screwed up big-time.

John didn't sound hopeful. He didn't anxious. He sounded, well, annoyed. Like he'd just figured out that Rodney McKay wouldn't know tact and consideration if it came up and kicked him. He'd been expecting the other shoe to drop, he'd been expecting John to turn around and realize that he could do a hell of a lot better, and now that it had happened, all he could think about was all the things he could have done to forestall this moment.

At the top of that list -- above sleeping with his ex, above freaking out -- was not talking to John. He could have explained and babbled and begged for forgiveness. He could have pointed out that beneath the ego, beneath the staggering intelligence, beneath the neurotic ability to see all the probable ways things were going to fall apart, there was a relatively sane, decent, reasonably attractive guy who'd really like to have sex with John again.

He needed to explain that to John.

But dialing that last digit of John's number remained terrifying. What if he didn't pick up? What if he _did_? What if he never wanted to speak to Rodney again or hung up, or said it was no big deal, that he hadn't been that interested in the first place?

That was why Rodney decided that the only way to fix this was in person. People who had no trouble being rude over the phone (or behind his back) tended to back down when personally confronted. Also, it meant that John couldn't hang up on him. If worse came to worse, he could shout through a closed door.

He hadn't paid close attention to John's address when he left -- he'd been focusing more on putting his shirt on the right way round and finding his socks. Also, John's decidedly odd working arrangements meant that even if Rodney did track down his address (which he could probably with a little effort), if was most likely that John would either be sleeping or not at home.

It occurred to Rodney the next morning -- Wednesday morning -- that for one hour that night he knew exactly where John would be: teaching the beginner's dancing lessons.

He changed shirts three times before he left his apartment that morning.

Driving from Berkeley that evening, he ran two red lights and went the wrong way up a one-way street. But he got to the dancing studio at half past seven, which allowed him five minutes to panic -- hyperventilating into a paper bag that smelled of ham and mayo sandwiches -- and another five minutes to climb the stairs and linger in the doorway, wondering if he should do this.

John was doing whatever he did to prepare for lessons: pulling things out of his backpack, walking back and forth, turning the stereo on. For once, he wasn't wearing one of those ever-present black t-shirts, instead, it was a dark olive green, almost inky against the tanned skin of his biceps. Rodney found himself staring, and he was still staring when John turned around and saw him.

"Oh, I, um..." Swallowing, Rodney pulled his gaze away from John's torso and forced himself to meet John's eyes, forced himself to talk as John walked over. "I went to the effort of driving here so I at least deserve a chance to go first and explain. Or not so much explain as acknowledge that I've spent the last few days acting like the biggest idiot in the world. And that I want to apologize and I know that you have no obligation to forgive me, but I really think you should. I behaved badly, yes, but everybody makes mistakes occasionally. Even Einstein made mistakes. The introduction of the cosmological constant was bad science, needlessly cluttering up his theory of general relativity. He should have followed his instincts, instead he doubted himself and tried to fix it, and made a mess of the things he'd done well. This is the same thing. Not that sleeping with you explains the universe--"

"Rodney?"

"-- but it's the same thing, two really smart guys screwing up what they know should work because they're having trouble understanding the rest of the universe," Rodney finished in a rush. When he'd prepared that speech, reciting it inside his head, it sounded a lot more convincing. Inside his head, this was the moment where John started kissing him; in actuality, John gave him an odd half-smile and dropped his eyes to Rodney's shoulder.

Then he frowned, a change as sharp as a lightning strike, and switched from placated and guardedly encouraging to cold and dismissive. "I don't think so."

"What do you mean you don't think so? I came all the way out here, I fought through rush-hour traffic to apologize right, and you're vetoing this as if you've changed your mind on what you want to order for lunch. I don't accept that."

"You don't get a choice. Apologizing doesn't mean you're automatically forgiven," John said, his voice as harsh as his expression. "I don't want your apologies and I don't want you."

There was a long moment of silence. Rodney thought about leaving, about giving up, but scowling and determination and sheer pigheadedness had gotten him pretty far in life. "I screwed up, I get that. Big, big screw up. Huge. But I know that, so I'm here apologizing and you're being an idiot."

John's jaw clenched and unclenched, and there was a flicker of something else, something softer, before John huffed. "No, I've been an idiot. I've done this before and like hell I'm doing it again."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning I'm not playing tour guide for the "questioning" straight guy."

"That's unfair." He could hear himself whining. Rodney hated it when he whined. "It's not like I was waving a rainbow flag the first time you kissed me, and you kissed me, not the other way around."

"You'd think I'd know better, wouldn't you?" John asked with a rueful nod. "But instead, I fall for the cute, straight guy. The one who isn't sure about his sexuality, who won't be comfortable being obvious in public. The one who'll turn around in six months time and be self-righteous and condescending as he tells me he's getting engaged and has to stop playing around now."

"That's completely unfair. And ungrounded." Which wasn't technically true, but John didn't know -- couldn't have known -- about him sleeping with Christine, so it was true enough. "Just because there are a lot of jerks in the world doesn't make me one."

"It doesn't. Getting your machine five times in a row does. Being completely ignored by you for days? Does as well."

"You don't understand--"

"You'd be surprised how much I understand, McKay." John stepped back, like a door slamming in his face, and Rodney hated the smirk on his face. "I'd appreciate it if you leave. I have a lesson to teach."

Rodney wasn't sure what the past tense of slinking was -- slunk? slinked? -- but he did it going down the stairs, staring at the carpet, trying to ignore the students coming up. He still noticed the way a couple of the younger girls smiled at him, the odd quizzical look. He wondered how many of them had been at the dance on Friday.

He got back to his car, scrunched up the smelly paper bag, and spent some time looking at his own reflection. He didn't have rings under his eyes, didn't look tired and despairing: he wasn't the picture of yearning, longing lover.

He just looked like him. Blue eyes, wide forehead, straight nose. Almost-straight mouth and soft chin. Nothing was different, nothing stood out.

Other than the hickey on his neck, he thought as he fingered the reddened mark. Then he remembered seeing it in the mirror this morning, wondered if he should wear a collar high enough to cover it or display it easily with a t-shirt, forcebly remind John of what had happened. (Not that he thought John would forget, but... He had. He couldn't remember John biting hard enough to bruise. Not like Christine always did.)

Not like...

He was concussed. He had to be. He must have hit his head so hard he couldn't even remember, because there was no other explaination for suddenly becoming a complete moron.

He hadn't seen it Monday morning. He'd looked in the mirror, searched for the evidence, tried to wash it all away. He hadn't seen the hickey.

Hence, he hadn't had it at that stage. Hence, it must have been Christine.

Crap.

No wonder John had thought...

He had to fix this. Somehow.

Across from him, the second-floor window had "DANOING LESSONS" misspelled in thick red letters. The studio inside looked bright and lively with couples moving round the floor. Rodney stared at them and wondered if the lessons were any different, if John seemed less friendly, less carefree than he had a week ago. If John had wanted to call up sick and beg someone to replace him tonight.

The dancers looked the same. The couple closest to the window were in their late forties. The man was graying and half-bald, stepping stiffly in a dark business suit. The woman was blonde with loosely set curls and a flared lemon skirt. Then John walked over to them -- dark hair, dark t-shirt; Rodney couldn't see if he was smiling -- and Rodney found himself reaching for the paper bag again.

He realized he couldn't do this. He couldn't front up there and interrupt John's class, couldn't stand in front of strangers and beg for forgiveness. So he waited. He waited for the hour to pass and spent his time staring up at the window. When that got too bright, he stared at the clock in his car. He waited until the couples stopped moving, until the small crowd of people walked outside.

He waited until the window went dark. Then he grasped the door-handle, told himself if he didn't go now he'd never get a chance to fix this -- and more importantly, never get a chance to sleep with John again -- and forced his way up the stairs.

The door to the studio was open, as were the thin, gauzy curtains on the windows. Orange streetlight fell on the empty stretch of wooden floor, making the room look much larger than it actually was. John was at the far side of the room, fussing with his backpack. That corner of the room was darker, shadowed, but it didn't hide the fall in John's expression when he turned around and saw Rodney.

John's shoulders were squared and he had one hand on his hip. Rodney desperately wanted those almost-dimples to appear, but John's expression was hard and cold. "Was there something you wanted?"

"I came to talk to you. I came to apologize, which I'm not good at. It's not something I do often but I may need to -- I mean I think I do -- with this, because clearly I was--"

"I meant," John said sharply, "did you want something dance-related? If not, feel free to leave."

"I wanted--"

"Is it dance-related?" John's smile was tight.

"Well, no, but--"

"Then leave."

John turned his back to Rodney, and Rodney realized his mouth was hanging open. He'd expected this to be humiliating but he'd expected to have a chance. "John, please."

John didn't even turn around.

"I'm not seeing Christine. We really did break-up." It sounded like a pathetic excuse but it was true. "I'm not sure how we ended up sleeping together -- I was just getting my stuff -- but it's not like I lied to you. Well, not about that."

John hoisted his backpack over one shoulder and started walking towards the door. Rodney waited for him to walk out, but a step away from Rodney, John stopped.

John didn't look at him -- stared at the ratty strap of his bag instead -- but Rodney had to try. "Look, I--"

"Don't." John didn't meet his eyes. Even when Rodney lifted a hand to cover the incriminating mark, John didn't look up. "I don't need to know the details. Let's put it down to a mistaken one night stand between us. This obviously wasn't... wasn't what I thought it was."

Rodney let his head drop. When he glanced up, John was staring at the floor, looking angry and sad and hurt. Mostly hurt. For some reason, Rodney hadn't even considered that. Hadn't ever thought he had the power to hurt John. He'd seen John's confident smiles and easy grace, and he'd lusted, sure, but he hadn't really thought...

"I'm sorry." The words were too small, too common. They couldn't fix something like this.

John shrugged. "It was one night. No harm done." The lie was glaringly obvious; it made Rodney feel worse.

"Dance with me."

John snorted and shook his head.

"Dance with me," Rodney repeated, stepping closer, not sure if he was allowed to reach out and touch. "Please."

"You don't have light, Rodney, let alone music."

Rodney almost smiled at John's words. It wasn't a no. "There's enough light to see by," he said, waving a hand at the street-light streaked floor, the hazy orange dusk of the room. "Dance with me."

John let his bag drop to the floor. It wasn't exactly a yes, but when Rodney reached for his hand, John didn't pull away. When Rodney put his hand on John's back, John's palm landed lightly on his shoulder.

And when he moved, John moved with him.

John settled close to him, neck held up straight, head hovering over Rodney's shoulder. Rodney had a sneaking suspicion it was so John wouldn't have to look at him.

"I'm sorry. I woke up and I panicked, and I acted really badly. It was stupid and ridiculous, and I can't justify it. I didn't do it-- It wasn't... It wasn't planned and it wasn't because I don't like you, because I do." Rodney swallowed. "To an extent that frightens the hell out of me. I really like you, and I never, I never imagined being with someone like you. It was never part of my plan for the future. And suddenly I-- Am I making any sense?"

John nodded, his chin pressing against Rodney's shoulder.

"I like you. And I like this. It scares the hell out of me but," Rodney took a quick breath, "I want this. I didn't mean to screw it up."

"And Christine?" John asked softly, barely more than a whisper.

"We weren't getting back together, I wouldn't have, but it took me a while to understand that. It was…" Rodney took a deep breath as they turned, and fought the urge to dig his fingers into John and never let him go. "It was easy. It was so easy to do."

"That's not filling me with confidence," John said, and again, it wasn't a definite, it wasn't an invitation, but it gave Rodney hope.

"Not the cheating on you, the actual sex thing. The knowing what goes where and who does what. Knowing which events I can take her to and how far I can push, and what happens next. The general plan for my future was to have a brilliant academic career, to marry someone relatively intelligent and produce intelligent-to-brilliant offspring to save the next generation of idiots. It's a lot easier to fit Christine into that scenario than you."

John h'mmed under his breath, and Rodney figured the smart thing to do would be being quiet and hoping John would get it, would get how important this was to him, how much he wanted this. Apparently, his mouth didn't agree because he just couldn't stop the words coming out.

"I'm not absolutely married to the idea of being married, but we're talking about a lifelong assumption here. I always assumed that was how my life would go, that I'd meet someone after I had a couple degrees, get married, keep studying and start publishing. I didn't worry about dating in high school and college, because it didn't work in with my overall plans, but now I'm thinking there's possibly another reason I wasn't too worried about girls. Mind you, it's not like I've ever met you before -- obviously, but I mean, anyone like you -- so I hadn't had the comparison between frightening, scary, incredible attraction and safe, planned, easy sex."

John pulled back, enough to look Rodney in the eye and say seriously, "Screw it up again, and you don't get a second chance."

"Understood." John's neck was stretched slightly to the side, in the perfect place for Rodney to duck down and press a kiss against the angle of John's jaw. "No more stupid mistakes. Well, not like this. In my defense, you're kind of overwhelming. In the good way."

"And you're more than a little insane," John said, letting his head dip and then resting his cheek against Rodney's shoulder.

"I've heard the correct phrase is charmingly eccentric."


End file.
